Joining the Rovers
by Young Swordsman
Summary: A new ally comes to the Rovers in the form of a stranded human in the desert along the side of the road. The human, named Kurt, brings to the Rovers a more firey warrior, with some old school weapons. Rated T for some violence.
1. Book 1: Joining the Rovers

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Part I

"There we go..." my dry voice croaked to myself as I noticed probably the only man-made thing in about 500 miles: a country highway. It was only about a hundred yards away, but walking the length of a football field in the middle of some desert when I hadn't had anything to eat or drink in about 2 days was mind-boggling to me. _Look... you've gotta get there... it's your only chance of getting out of this barren desert!_ spoke my conscious to me sharply. I had to agree.  
Even though I wore lightweight clothes, I still had two longswords strapped to my back in their scabbards along with a composite bow and a quiver of arrows. Even for someone as far away from civilization as I was, it felt kind of ridiculous. Carrying medieval weapons like that in the year 2002 is pretty ludicrous to almost everybody. Mainly because if anyone was going to attack you, they'd have a gun, and the fact that medieval weapons like that were hard to conceal, which could cause you to get arrested.  
_God, I hate it when I go off on tangents like that..._ I thought as I shook those thoughts out of my head. I put my focus solely back on getting to the highway. I made the somewhat drastic decision to run for it. It could take all my strength, it could knock me unconscious, it could kill me for all I cared, but at least if it killed me, I would have died with a chance of being found by someone on that highway. I began running as fast as my deprived body could allow me to run, causing me to not only sweat almost instantly, but to start panting as well, which probably meant that I was losing nutrients in my body. The smell of my own sweat and the sensation of heat from the glaring sun above me was rather intimidating, but I put that beside me. I kept running towards that highway as if it was the fountain of youth or maybe the Holy Grail if it had some sort of holy liquid in it. Such a mindset had gotten me about 10 yards away from the highway, but by then I had to stop running and walk, because I thought I'd give out before I got there if I did, and that might reduce the chances of me finding someone drive along this desolate highway.  
I fell to my knees. I could reach out and touch that highway right now, smell the asphalt, feel the heat coming out of it, and even see those heat waves rising from it, but I didn't find the strength in me to move anything that was part of my body, except my head, as I looked to each side for someone coming. I looked to my left; nothing. I looked to my right; nothing. I knew I was doomed now. I could feel the strength draining from me now. I closed my eyes and looked up to the sky to await my fate, hoping that it would come to me quick and swift. I took a somewhat deep breath (each breath was beginning to hurt) and exhaled.  
As if on cue, I heard the noise of a motor in the distance. I turned to the direction where it was coming from. Sure enough, it was a silver and black bus sort of vehicle. _Thank you, Jesus..._ I thought as I saw it approaching. I reached my arm out towards it, trying to get its attention. It was going pretty fast, so it didn't take long for it to slow down, put on its hazard lights, and pull over. My vision started to blur. _Whoever's in that bus had better hurry up!_ I thought. I heard a window open on the bus, and I saw a blurry figure lean out the window. The same thing happened for a few of the other windows. A voice (I couldn't tell which one of the people leaning out the window it came from) called out in a friendly voice, "Hey, you need a lift?" I tried to roll my eyes, but my strength was quickly waning. I managed to reply, "Ya think...?" in a somewhat soft and extremely dry and scratchy voice before falling over to the side, landing in the sand. _Well, at least that wasn't the road..._ I thought. I heard panicked voices come from the bus. I picked out a female voice with a British accent, and a few male voices, two of which had accents from some European country, one was American, and another was something else that I couldn't make out. I heard the door of the bus open and footsteps rushed towards me. A couple pairs of hands rolled my body onto my back. I think I blacked out then, but I don't know, because I remember feeling someone try to perform CPR on me for a couple seconds, or at least I thought that was the case... all I know is that I did black out. I knew that death could be a short time away from now.

My eyes opened. I moved my eyes around to see where I was. I was kind of surprised; this sure didn't look like a hospital... although there was the fairly strong smell of rubbing alcohol that every medical facility had, the seemingly metal walls were not what hospitals usually looked like. It's what laboratories looked like. I began to panic, and I got up off of the cot I was lying on. It was one of the more painful things I have done, but I wasn't really thinking about that at the moment. I reached to my back for my swords or my bow and arrow, but they were not there. "Well that wasn't too surprising..." I said to myself. I mean, come on, you think they want large metal objects strapped to your back while they're trying to revive you? I ran to the nearest door and pushed it open. The rest of whatever facility this was was the same as everywhere else: metal. Although the domed roof above me was what looked like either glass or Plexiglas. _Well, at least this place is using natural light,_ I thought.  
I looked around my nearest surroundings, and I found a rack. My swords and quiver of arrows were hanging from it. My bow was leaned against the wall. "Thank you, whoever put these here..." I said to myself as I ran to them to equip myself. As I finished strapping my sword scabbards and quiver of arrows to my back, I reached over to pick up my composite bow. As I stood up, I felt a presence behind me. _Oh, no..._ I thought. I was sure I was caught now... Being caught in a laboratory that had you in one of it's medical rooms is almost never a good thing. I didn't have time to draw my swords, so I used another move that was more damaging than a punch; I grabbed one hand, bent my right elbow at about 30 degrees, and swung it back around me, hoping to smack someone in the side of the head. The person behind me was hit hard, but... it wasn't necessarily a person... it had a dog's head! _Christ, this place is more insane than I thought..._ The dog-headed person's head was smacked to the side as it was hit by my elbow in the direction I was swinging to. The guy held his head like that for a moment, wide-eyed. "ow..." he said in a way that would be humorous had I not been afraid for my life, and then he fell backwards onto the ground, out cold. I crouched down examined the body to get an idea of what else I was to expect. It looked like a yellow lab's head put onto a human body with metallic light blue armor almost all over it. Well, it looked human until I noticed a tail sticking out of it's rear end. "Sorry, I don't like whatever they did to ya, but I don't want the same fate for me." I said in a somewhat fake reassuring voice, smiling. I patted the guy's shoulder, stood up, and began to run.  
I didn't get further than about 2 feet until I noticed a line of three other bodies like the one I had hit, and another freakishly tall... something. Fortunately, that one was more afraid of me than I was of him, so I wouldn't have too much of a problem dealing with that one. I drew my swords and swung them around menacingly. I assumed my battle stance. "Step out of my way or you're gonna meet a similar fate to him!" I called out. One of the ones that had armor pulled out a small, but menacingly designed pistol. Another, who seemed to have the head of a Doberman, pulled out what looked like a mortar launcher. The third one, who I could tell by the armor design, was female, but that probably was deceiving to most of her enemies. I realized that the hard way, because she jumped into the air towards me with astonishing swiftness, and karate-kicked me in the head, and at the same time, I heard her battle cry. I fell down, out cold... again.  
I came to some hours later. I was in the same room, but this time those people whom I had an encounter with were standing around my bed. "If you intend to kill me, then please spare me the pain and do it now..." I said weakly. "After vat you did to Hunter, I'd like to." said one of them. He had a heavy German accent and had the head of a Doberman. "But we can't. It is against code." returned another, the one who had pulled out the pistol. He had the head of a Siberian Husky, and spoke with a Russian accent. "You are prisoner for what you did," the Siberian Husky continued, "so we must question you before we let you go." _Well, at least they'd find nothing wrong with my background, I don't think... _I thought. "Look... let me say that I'm sorry for what I did to the Yellow Lab guy, um, I guess his name's Hunter..." I sighed. "I was in fear for my life. Waking up to find yourself in a laboratory with nobody around you is an especially scary and disturbing situation. I mean, healed or not, it puts images in your head, you know?" The female one who kicked me earlier, who had the head of some sort of Collie, laughed. "Blimey, we know that you've been watchin' too many movies!" she spoke, still laughing a bit. She had a noticeable, but not strong British accent. "Well, next time, we'll keep the doors locked when we take someone in for me'ical care," she continued. "That, my friend, would be a good idea." I said. "But ve still must ask you questions. If you vere vell enough to valk around like you vere, then follow us!" spoke the Doberman sternly. I was well enough to walk, but I just had one heck of a bruise on my head. I followed them out of the room and through their HQ. As we walked in silence, I decided to show some sympathy for what I did, since I really was sorry for attacking one of my rescuers, I wanted to make a point that I was truly sorry. "So... how is Hunter doing?" I asked. "'E'll be all right," said the Collie, "but 'e's got a bit o' a bruise on his 'ead." "Ts, like me..." I commented to myself. The Collie must have heard that and gave me an evil look. I lowered my head, showing remorse. We continued to what was probably their briefing room in silence. When we got there, they put me in a chair. "The Master will be in in few minute," said the Siberian Husky. They all walked to the door, and before they closed it, they gave me one a somewhat evil smile, but I disregarded it. They closed the door, and I heard a click sound, probably meaning that the door had locked. A few moments later a door in front of me opened up, with intense light coming through it. A dark figure with eye the same color as the intense light behind him walked through. He spoke in a voice that was somewhat calming, but otherwise trying to be neutral. "Greetings, stranger." he said. "What do you want from me? Who are those weird mutants you command? Who in the heck are you?" I demanded. The person laughed. "I want answers, to answer your first question, to answer your second one, they are not mutants. They have been morphed by an mechanized, but completely painless process, yes, but they are not genetic experiments gone wrong. They can be morphed back to their normal canine forms, so do not feel bad for them. To answer your last question, I am who they call 'The Master'." I tried to process this all as the "Master" said this. "OK, so then what are they for? Your personal bodyguards? Your army? Your pets, God forbid?" I asked erratically. The master sighed, this time annoyed rather than amused. "Please, do not be ridiculous," he said. "If they were to be my pets, I wouldn't have had them morphed. They are not my army, as there are only five of them. They could be my bodyguards should this place ever be invaded by enemy forces, but they are not just that. They are a crime-fighting force known as the Road Rovers. They stand for everything that you stand for: truth, justice, and order." My jaw dropped. "How do you know me?" I asked sternly. "When you were in our medical care, we scanned your iris patterns and compared it with INTERPOL and FBI files of known criminals, as a sort of preliminary background check. You did have a small criminal record of being accused, but acquitted of murder a couple times, but you were acquitted because it was for self-defense, were you not?" I sighed, "Yes, but it was self-defense. Don't judge me based on that." The Master laughed a bit. "Of course we wouldn't. But we were alarmed , however, when you knocked Hunter out cold, though, so that put us up on our guard. You seemed like a loose cannon." "I understand that," I said. "So, before we start going off on a tangent, let's just get to the questions you want to ask me. I can assure you you will not find anything wrong with my background." "We shall see," said the Master. "First off, do you know this person?" A huge screen in front of me, but surrounding the door lit up, showing a picture of some large muscular guy dressed in camo attire. "I do not, sir." I replied. The screen changed to a lie detector meter. It showed three different straight lines, and then the word "clear" flashed in large letters in front of that. "Have to make sure you're not lying." said the Master. "Your chair is fitted with lie detector equipment. Second question," he continued, "Does the name 'Parvo' mean anything to you?" "I heard it once... the news named him as a suspected terrorist leader, but I don't know what he looks like, or where he lives or anything..." I answered. The screen again showed a "clear" lie detector test. "Next question," continued the Master, "Do you, or do you not know any other connotation for the word 'Groomer'?" I made a confused look, as I was very confused by that. "You mean, other than for someone who takes care of a dog's fur? No." Again, a "clear" lie detector test.  
I was asked a bunch of other extremely cryptic questions, which lasted a while. I gave a "clear" response to the lie detector every time. The Master guy told me someone else would ask me one final question. "Someone else?" I asked. "Why not you?" The Master replied, "It's complicated, but let's just say it would be more fitting for this person to say it." Then, the door clicked, unlocked. It opened, and a figure walked into the room. The Master exited the room and the door closed behind him. The lights came on. I stood up, gasping in shock. It was Hunter, the one that I knocked unconscious. I fell to my knees. "Christ, I am so sorry for what I did to you earlier! Please, will you accept my forgiveness?" I asked profusely, and somewhat desperately. Hunter chuckled a bit. "Hey, we can forgive an honest mistake like that every so often, man." he said in a friendly tone that was very sincere. "Well," I said, getting up, "I can assure you that the 'once in a while' part will be something you will not have to worry about any more with me." I stood upright, took the stance of a soldier at attention, and saluted Hunter. "If you wish for me to join you and your team in fighting crime and terrorism, I shall serve." Hunter smiled, and put a hand on my shoulder. "You took my question out of my mouth, man. Welcome to the pack!" he exclaimed. On cue, seemingly, the others in the blue armor came through the same door. They seemed happy. I lowered my hand to my side, and was at ease. "Please," I told them, "I do hope you can forgive me for what I did to him. Even he says it was an honest mistake." The Siberian Husky smiled, "Of course we can. Just so long you don't go kick one of us again like that." he said. I couldn't believe it. I had finally, in God knows how many years, felt at home.

I began stretching for the training exercise. The Road Rovers wanted to know what kind of capabilities I had. I did have good skills, but I still needed to be entirely prepared for whatever they were going to throw at me. I was mostly doing this in exchange for... let's just say, getting to know them in a more human fashion than what they were used to doing with each other. They have a habit of keeping most of their identities and skills secret until they know they can trust someone or until they run a background check on them. Most of the time, they do both before they can trust someone. Well... that, and a reason to go out in the field with them. I didn't really want to stay around the station simply making sure intruders didn't come in. Considering the fact that this place was hidden in the ruins of some old bombed-out laboratory, intruders probably weren't likely. I had to prove to them that I could do more than just sit around and guard a place that wasn't going to get invaded any time soon. I got my swords out and warmed up my hands and arms. A voice came on on the loudspeaker. It was the Master guy. "Are you ready?" he asked. I stood at attention. "Sir, yes sir!" I shouted. The Rovers walked up to me from behind a corner. "You sound a bi' over-confident..." said the Collie. I did some fancy moves with my swords, then took up a defensive posture. "I don't usually get over confident, actually." I said. "You want to fight me to find out?" The Collie laughed. "No' until I've seen ya fight the bad guys." she replied. "Follow us." ordered the Doberman. I sheathed my swords and walked behind them as they lead me to the room where I was to be tested. I spent the walking time testing out my bowstring to make sure it was tight enough.  
We got to the room and a large door opened. It was a large, extremely rocky terrain, probably made artificially or from the bombed-out ruins that this compound was hidden under. "Velcomme to tha chamber of deaath." said the Doberman very menacingly. He was starting to remind me of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I didn't want to say anything about that. I walked forward, and then turned around. "Well, wish me luck." I told the Rovers. "I only do that because you haf potential..." said the Siberian Husky. "...according to Hunter." "Thank you." I said somewhat sarcastically. The Rovers grinned a bit, and the door closed behind me. The voice of the Master came over the loudspeakers. "You'll be attacking dummies of the enemies that we face on a regular basis. They are made of ballistics gel, so it will be similar to actually fighting them." "Yeah, except for the fact that they aren't moving..." I said. I heard a mechanized sound all around me. I drew my swords, and four ballistics gel models of helmeted people come up from the ground, looking like they held guns, and lasers came spewing from the guns. I ran for cover. I sheathed my swords and took out my bow and arrow. I knocked an arrow on the string, then looked around the rock for a moment long enough to aim and release the arrow. The arrow hit the ballistics gel dummy in the chest, and although it didn't fall, it ceased to spew out laser fire. I did the same thing for the rest of the dummies, and all lasers were silent. I heard the mechanized noise again, and looked out from the rock. Two dummies were in front of a sign that said "Get here without raising the alarm." Well, I could try firing two arrows at the same time, but that was too difficult for right now, and I didn't want to blow whatever chance I had. I decided to do a more stealthy, but up-close way of getting there. I pulled a cloak over my body, and silently ran over to another cover spot nearer to the dummies. I had to do that about two times before I was within striking range of my swords. I drew them, and then I jumped on top of my cover area, and then jumped down onto the two dummies, and drove one of my swords into one of them, let go of that sword, and then with both hands, hacked the other one in the chest with my other remaining sword. No alarm went off. I took my sword out of the first dummy. I wiped off some remaining ballistics gel on the blade with my cloak. _It's not that bad..._ I thought to myself.  
The testing continued with a bunch of stuff that required me cutting up a bunch of more ballistics gel dummies and some models of baby Godzilla-sized creatures that I guess the Road Rovers had already fought at some point, and a few things that required my bow and arrow. It lasted about three or four hours, and by the time I was finished, I was sweating, panting, tired, but still confident that I had done well. _That was one Hell of a test!_ I thought as the door I had come in by opened. The Road Rovers walked in with very impressed looks on their faces. "Wow, man, a lot of us underestimated you, but you sure proved us wrong!" exclaimed Hunter. "Oi'd challenge you if you didn't have to use two swords all the time..." the Collie said coolly. "You were amazing! I give you big hug, OK?" exclaimed the Siberian Husky. He did give one heck of a hug... I almost stopped breathing! "Ay!" I yelled as he did so, "Thank you, thank you! I understand you were amazed at that!" He let me go. "I could have done thaaat..." remarked the Doberman. He put up his claws and they grew longer, and they appeared really sharp, probably razor sharp. "Well..." I said, "how about I challenge you to a demolition derby tomorrow? Hack up as much stuff as you can with your claws, and me with my swords in a time limit!" I suggested. The Doberman didn't answer, but I could tell he might be interested. Somehow, I had a feeling there was less to the Doberman than meets the eye, but I couldn't tell how I knew that.  
We walked back into the lobby area. We all sat down, and I relaxed, and started up everything. "So," I began, "I'd like to get to know you better, so, I'd like to hear some names, please. I don't want to always be calling you by your breed names, and I don't want to seem like I'm singling out Hunter, either, since I only know his name. How about I start? My name is Kurt. I am from the United States, and I have German descent. My primary weapons of choice are, as you saw, my two longswords and my bow and arrow." I smiled and waited for a reply from someone. The Doberman was the first one to do so. "I am Blitz," he began, "I am from Germany, and back there I vas a guard dog for a car dealership. I had a record for the most biting of the soft parts of any intruders! You already know vat my veapon of choice is!" he exclaimed, holding out his razor sharp claws and flashing his teeth, which seemed to have a similar complexion. "Don't be a weird-boy in front of new guy. You scare him." said the Siberian Husky. He then turned to me. "I am Exile. I come from Russia. I have super strength, and I freeze things with my eyes, like this," he stared at a wall. His eyes turned blue, and then blue beams of light came out of them. The wall was frozen over in a matter of seconds. "And, I melt it." he continued. He did the same process, but his eyes turned red, and the ice melted. Exile sat down, and the Collie stood up. "Colleen's the name 'ere." she said. "I'm from London, and as you've noticed, I'm a martial arts master, and I've got quick agility. YAAA!" she exclaimed as she executed a couple consecutive karate kicks in lightning speed. Hunter stood up next to her. I sensed that they had some sort of feelings for each other, but if they did, they were trying not to be obvious about it. "Well, you already know my name," said Hunter, "so, I'll continue that I'm from the United States as well, and that I've got super speed!" He ran across the room and back so fast that he left a trail of fire behind him. Exile quickly extinguished the fire with his ice vision. "Wow..." I said, amazed at these abilities. "This is probably the most incredible group of crime fighters I've ever heard of!" I exclaimed. "Of course," Hunter added, "even super heroes need some equipment sometimes..." "Like what?" I asked. "Follow me." he said, waving at the others to do the same. We all followed Hunter into another room. He hit the lights, and I saw an arsenal of weapons. "I'd explain all of these, but that would take about... a year, so we'll just explain our favorite ones." Blitz and Hunter walked over to a particular weapon that they apparently had a favor of. Blitz came up first with a weapon off the rack that looked like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. "Thees is the Tooshie-biting bouquet. It vill chomp at vatefer I fire at with steel jaaws!" he explained. I could tell he was really passionate about using that thing. He put that away and came up with a similar weapon. "Thees, is the spike-ball launcher." he explained. "Well, that sounds pretty self-explanatory, launches a spiked ball at whatever you want to..." I tried to figure out what it's purpose was. "...to knock down valls and gates and stuff." Blitz finished. He put it back and got out a menacingly designed pistol. "Thees is a powerful laser." he said. "I like to call it the 'Puppy Blaster'". "I can see why you call it that..." I mused. "I guess it's too dangerous to see what it can do... or is it?" Blitz smiled a bit, and pointed it at a wall, and fired. The laser made one heck of a hole in the wall. He walked back and put the pistol back where he got it. Hunter came up with what looked like a powerful grenade launcher. He held out a tennis ball. "Although this doesn't seem like much of ammo, it packs quite a punch!" he explained. He stuffed the ball into the front of the launcher, and said, "this is actually a gas bomb, and it releases sleeping gas to whoever it's fired at. I've also got a couple other tennis ball launchers, but they all perform basically the same function: to shoot tennis balls at high speeds." he concluded. He put the tennis ball launcher back and came back with a smaller version of that. "This is the same thing, it's just more portable." he explained.  
Suddenly, the Master's voice came on the loudspeaker, calling for all of us to report to the briefing room. We all ran there as fast as we could. Once we got there, the Master was already standing before us. "Rovers, we've got a heavily armed robbery going underway in New Mexico. Terrorists are trying to steal Uranium that was buried underground since it's not good enough to be used in Nuclear power plants." The screen behind him showed news footage of the robbers. The appeared to be heavily armed with automatic weapons and mortar launchers. "These people appear to be General Parvo's military force, based on their armor and their weapons. They do have a convoy, so the best thing to begin with is to destroy their transports so they can't go anywhere with the Uranium unless they want to go on foot." he explained. "Sir, yes sir!" I shouted, standing at attention. The rest of the Rovers followed suit. "Then go out, and prevent any possible World War III that could come from this!" the Master exclaimed.  
In the hangar, we had to split up, since each vehicle could only hold so many people at a time. "OK," said Hunter, "Blitz, Kurt, and I will take the Street Rover. Colleen, Shag, and Exile will take the Sky Rover. Let's hit the road, Rovers!" He exclaimed. I followed Blitz and Hunter into the Street Rover vehicle. It lacked the new car smell, since it was probably anything but new. We all got situated in the vehicle, and the doors closed. I then realized something. "Wait..." I said as Hunter started the engine, "you mentioned someone named 'Shag', who is that? I was never introduced to him..." "Oh, Shag?" said Hunter, "Well, let's just say two things: first, he doesn't wear armor, second, he's not the bravest soul you'll ever meet..." "And I aaaam!" exclaimed Blitz. "Ts, we'll see about that..." said Hunter sort of sarcastically. I wondered how Blitz could be faking any bravery. I mean, he did seem brave, but I'd just have to see him in action to see if that was for real or not. Hunter hit the gas pedal, and we sped out of the hangar. I was more excited than I ever was in my life. I was actually going on a crime-fighting mission with real super-powered crime fighters! Nothing could compare to this, and probably nothing could surpass it, either.

Part II

As Hunter, Blitz, and I entered the vast desert of New Mexico, we could all feel the sweltering heat of the sun glaring down on us. Even though were inside their fast ground vehicle, the Street Rover, the heat from the sunlight coming through the windows was unavoidable. Even though Hunter flipped on the A/C, you could still tell it was burning hot outside. I also finally found out why Hunter was being sarcastic about Blitz's bravery; he was complaining constantly about the heat. Although I think it's true that it never gets this hot in Germany, I did know that he shouldn't worry too much about it since he's got really short fur, unless his armor was making it worse.  
"Blitz, stop that, would you?" demanded Hunter. "Seriously, Kurt walked through the desert for two days without food or water! Show him some respect!" "It's fine," I said. "Goes to show you that doing what I did when you guys found me was no walk in the park." "I'll say..." said Blitz. "Well, we'll need any heat stamina we have to get through today. I don't think the bad guys are gonna make sure we don't get heat exhaustion," said Hunter. "Well," I said, "once we've beaten them into the sand, we can always take their water supplies, can't we?" "Eh... try getting that past Colleen," remarked Hunter. I looked at him somewhat confused. "...She'll want it sterilized first!" he joked. We all burst out laughing. We stopped laughing very suddenly when the Street Rover hit something hard enough that it stopped instantly. _Thank God the airbags worked..._ I thought. I took out a small pocket-knife I had in my pocket and cut out the airbags so that we could all get out. Once the airbags were deflated and we could all move freely, we looked at what we had just crashed into. We had just crashed into the enemy's convoy, consisting of military-grade Hummers. "Get out of the car! Now!" I shouted. Not only because we had just crashed into the bad guy's vehicles, but because I saw flames coming from the hood. We all opened the doors and ran out as fast as we could. Both the car and the enemy vehicle exploded in about 15 seconds, but fortunately we had everything we needed out of the car. "Hunter," I said, "radio the others. Tell them we've found the convoy." Hunter got out his headset communicator and put it on. "Exile, Colleen, we've found the convoy," he said into the headset. I could hear a muffled reply in the headphones, but not what was said. Hunter looked at Blitz and me. "Well, apparently they've already found it and they're engaging them right as we speak," he said. "Then let the biting of many backsides begin!" shouted Blitz. I gave him a strange look, but I took out my bow. "I second that, except I'm saying let the flying of sharp, pointy objects towards their targets begin!" I exclaimed. I was starting to realize that Blitz had a thing for biting bad guy's rear ends for some strange reason that I didn't really want to think about. Hunter nodded. "Let's go, then!" he shouted. Blitz got out his pistol which he called the "Puppy Blaster", and Hunter got out the tennis ball gas bomb launcher, and we all started running towards the coordinates that Exile and Colleen gave Hunter over the headsets.  
Getting there, we saw that the Sky Rover was shot down and Exile, Colleen, and Shag were on foot. The majority of the convoy was clustered around here, so taking those out would be no problem, as blowing up one would get most of the others. Colleen was executing a bunch of martial arts skills on whoever dared to approach her in rapid and lightning fast succession. Most of them were knocked out, but there were probably more still taking out the Uranium from the underground chamber, and probably more still in the convoys. I took an arrow out of my quiver and knocked it. Two of the terrorists were attacking Colleen, one from behind, the other from the front. She seemed aware of the one in front, but not behind. I took aim and fired one at the one behind her. It hit him square in the neck, and he fell to the ground. Colleen, after knocking out the guy in front of her, turned around to face the one behind her, but found only his dead body. She looked at me as I ran up to her and Exile, firing arrows at more of the terrorists as they approached. "Thank you for tha'," Colleen said to me. "Any time," I replied. Exile was busy freezing more terrorists solid in blocks of ice. It was no wonder he didn't use weapons that much. He had all he needed in his eyes. Then it hit me. "Exile!" I called out to him. "Use your heat vision to destroy their convoys! They're immobile without them!" Exile nodded to me and attempted to do so, but was held back by the terrorists. "I'll cover for you!" I shouted. I ran and jumped into the middle of the action in front of Exile, swords drawn. I landed, and with one slash, I knocked over three of them, and caused three others to double over. The other three Exile had no problem freezing them solid. "Thanks," I told him. "No problem, it is duty," he replied, smiling. I smiled back a little. "I love the duty code you guys have!" I called out to the Rovers in general.  
Exile climbed up the wreckage of the Sky Rover and took a sheltered spot in it and began to use his heat vision on the convoys. I covered for him, like I said I would. I had to use a makeshift shield made from some scrap pieces of metal from the Sky Rover when the terrorists began opening fire on us with their automatic weapons. Fortunately, they didn't see Exile up in the wreckage of the Sky Rover heating their vehicles with his heat vision. "Hunter! Blitz! A little help here!" I called out to them from behind the shield. I knew that they had weapons that could help with these guys. Sure enough, laser fire from Blitz's Puppy Blaster came slicing through their lines. Some of them dropped their weapons and ran, others were hit by the laser fire and fell where they were, but others turned their fire onto Blitz and Hunter. Hunter launched his sleeping gas bomb tennis ball a few times, which was able to sedate almost all of them. I ran out from my shield, and cut down all who were still standing. I looked at Hunter and Blitz. Hunter walked over and examined what damage I did. "Well, there goes our G rating..." he said. I rolled my eyes. "You should have considered that when I was in the training room..." I replied. "But no matter, we've still got to make sure the convoys are destroyed..." but, as if on cue, there was a series of explosions. I turned around, and all of the terrorist's Hummers were exploding, one after another like a set of dominoes falling onto each other. The convoy apparently circled the attack zone. The explosions stopped at about the place where the Street Rover hit one of the convoys. Exile jumped down from the wrecked Sky Rover and ran over to us. "Well," said Hunter, "that worked out well." Colleen and Blitz ran over after Exile. "Although," I said, "We need to get rid of the ones that are underground taking the Uranium. They're probably down there right now waiting for the fighting to stop, which it did..." I noted looking around. "Then let's get down there and let the biting of the soft backsides begin!" exclaimed Blitz, getting out his grenade launcher that launches a steel ball with metal jaws attached to it. "Well... that thing will sure cut out most of our work..." I commented. "Then wha' are we waitin' for?" asked Colleen. "Le's get down there and era'icate them!" "You have agreement with me." said Exile. "My agreement there." Hunter and I said at the same time. "Wait..." I said, "Where's that Shag guy?" Then the large, moppy-looking bipedal dog that I had seen earlier came out from his hiding spot. "You were right about him..." I whispered to Hunter. "Not the bravest one you'll ever meet..."  
We all gathered together and ran down to the underground storage area where the Uranium was. Sure enough, there were more terrorists down there guarding the entrance and taking out the Uranium. "I'm second-guessing if this is a good idea..." I said. "I mean, Uranium is radioactive, isn't it?" The Rovers looked at me. "I mean... don't we need radioactive protection suits for this?" I looked down to where the looting of the Uranium was taking place. The terrorists weren't wearing any of those things because apparently the Uranium was being stored in huge metal containers that were resistant to corrosion. "Never mind..." I said. "Let's move, then." said Hunter quietly. I nodded. I took out my composite bow and pulled back an arrow, and fired at the ones guarding the entrance. It hit one in the neck and he fell silently. Colleen jumped to the side of a wall, pushed off of it, and landed a swift kick in the head on the other one. That one fell to the ground as well. We sneaked in through the entrance. We came across a terrorist that had his back facing us. I got close to him, put a hand over his mouth, and drove my sword through him. I let him fall once I stopped hearing his muffled scream. I made a gesture to the others that looked like I was loading a gun, meaning that they should be locked and loaded for this. Blitz held up his weapon he got out earlier, and Hunter got out another weapon that looked like a rocket launcher, but he loaded another tennis ball-like object into it. I held up my hand with three fingers up. I counted down with them. Three... two... one... I motioned forward. Hunter fired his weapon, and the tennis ball emitted a rope, and the rope went swinging around a somewhat large cluster of the terrorists , and eventually tied them together very tightly. They were all in panic, but they couldn't do anything about it.  
The rest that did not get tied up in the rope pointed their guns at us. Blitz grinned and fired his weapon of choice on them. The metal ball with large steel jaws came out and began chomping away, and following one of them. Colleen, Exile and I ran after the others. Blitz put away his weapon and did the same, and flashed his claws menacingly. I ran after two of them, and cornered them. They turned their guns at me, but before they could fire, I knocked the guns out of their hands with my swords, causing their hands to bleed. One of them put their hands up to surrender, the other one threw a punch at me. I ducked out of the way, and drove one of my swords up at him. It went through his gut, and he fell. I sheathed one sword, grabbed the one surrendering, and held the other sword at his neck. "This way..." I said. I walked him over to Hunter. "We could use some handcuffs here." I said. Hunter nodded and pulled out a pair that seemed to be designed for the Road Rovers, as it had their insignia on it. He cuffed the guy and held him. I watched the others follow through with taking out the rest of the terrorists. Blitz was able to use his claws and slice their guns down to almost nothing as they were pointed at him. When that happened, they dropped what was left of their weapons and held their hands up. Exile was chasing three of them. As he cornered them, they turned and tried to open fire on him, but Exile was quick to use his ice vision and freeze the barrels of their guns shut. They tried to fire anyway, but it only caused the guns to backfire and make a small explosion right next to their faces. They all fell unconscious. Colleen chased after two guys who also attempted to open fire on her, but she was too agile for their trigger fingers to react, kicking one upside the head, and executing an uppercut punch on the other in rapid succession, so fast that it almost seemed like she was doing it at the same time! They slumped to the ground, out cold.

Blitz came back over to Hunter and me holding his prisoners at the points of his claws. Exile carried the two unconscious terrorists over his shoulders, and Colleen dragged the ones she knocked out cold by their feet. Hunter got out a couple handcuffs for Blitz's prisoners, and Blitz cuffed both of them. "Well," said Colleen, "You think 'e shou' call the police?" she asked. "She does have a point..." I said, "I mean, they're the ones who take scumbags like these guys to jail, right?" "Of course," said Hunter. "We simply leave them unconscious or handcuffed outside until the police arrive," he said. "Sounds like a plan to me!" I replied. So, we went outside to the entrance to the underground chamber and sure enough, the police were already there. "We've got some people you should take in, but you'll need back-up..." I said. We brought out the ones we'd handcuffed and the ones that Hunter tied up with the lasso launcher thing. Well, every one of the police cars were taken up by the time all of the ones that were still conscious were put away. They had to bring back a few more to take in the ones we'd knocked unconscious, and the ones that I cut down were loaded into ambulances. Soon enough, the battlefield was clear. The police informed us that SWAT teams had neutralized all other resistors and their vehicles were disabled. "To the power of the pack!" exclaimed Hunter. Then all the Road Rovers began to join into a howl. I simply drew my sword and raised it to the sky in triumph. I was far too amazed with the fact that I had made a difference to speak. As the howl subsided, I lowered my sword and sheathed it.  
After repairing the Sky Rover enough so it could fly back to base, we flew back there. There, we docked the ship in the hangar and walked back into the briefing room. There, the Master was waiting for us. Even though his eyes were the same color as the almost blinding light behind him, I could tell that he was pleased. "You have done well, Rovers. You are all very good dogs. And Kurt," he said, turning to me, "how could we ever thank you for helping us out? You did realize you might not have come back from that alive, right?" he asked. I nodded. "I did know that. I went out because I didn't really have much to live for, but now I do. I think that allowing me to remain on your team is good enough a reward for me, sir." I said. The Master smiled. "Then you will. I hope you enjoy being with us and continuing to fight crime as the only human member of the Road Rovers," he explained calmly. I smiled. "Thank you, sir," I said.  
We left the briefing room, and I was hailed amidst many compliments, and many "Welcome to the pack!" comments and such. I was glad that I was welcomed so warmly. I had proved that I was worth something in this field. I finally belonged somewhere. I finally had a place to call "home."


	2. Book 2: A Part of the Rovers

Part I

The sunlight, which I am pretty sure was artificial given my underground location, came to my closed eyelids, and caused me to stir. I drifted from unconscious REM sleep into conscious awareness slowly but surely, and once I was completely conscious and aware of my surroundings, I turned sideways on my bed and sprang out on my feet, and ready to take on the world or whatever some opposing force wanted to throw at me. However, as much as I _felt_ ready to do anything, I was rather under prepared. I was only wearing my undershirt and some boxers, and was completely unarmed. I could fight decently with my bare hands, but I usually left that to Colleen, the martial arts master of the Road Rovers. I fought better with my European-style longswords and my bow and arrows. I quickly dressed myself in the light armor that I usually wore around the base and armed myself. I'd rather be prepared when an attack never comes than be completely unprepared should an attack actually come.

I walked to the kitchen and fixed up a few waffles in the toaster and put on some butter and syrup. The kitchen was rather empty, since the rest of the rovers hadn't come because there was really no reason for them to come. Well, not yet at least. Something happens to bring them down here every two days at it's most infrequent rate. Yesterday was a drag, as nothing really happened. As I finished my stack of waffles, an alarm went off. _Ah, here they come..._ I thought. I rushed towards their transporting tubes, whatever they're called. One by one, they came down their tubes. First was Colleen, the collie from London, and the Road Rover's master of martial arts. She came out in her normal canine form, but she was still able to recognize me, since she seemed very happy to see me. I knelt down next to her with my hand on her back and waited for the others to come in.

Blitz followed Colleen. A Doberman from Germany that used to be a guard dog at an exotic car dealership, he had an aggressive attack style and rarely showed mercy when fighting. He has extendable claws that can cut through almost everything, and some powerful jaw muscles. I do prefer to know the Road Rovers for their positive sides, but I am aware that he sometimes slips up on his courage, but it's infrequent, fortunately. In his canine form, he started acting aggressively, but I drew my swords to show it was me, and he calmed down nicely and waited for the others. I smiled and scratched his head to show him that he did a good thing.

Exile, a Siberian Husky from the barren wastelands of Siberia, came next. Strong, able-bodied, and has a skill with heat and ice vision. He's also able to fix (or break) practically anything and everything from computers to vehicles. A major plus with Exile is that he's got superhuman strength, which does come in handy almost all the time. Noticing him in his canine form was hard to miss, for me at least. Siberian huskies always caught my eyes for some reason. His looks in his canine form could make you forget what he was capable of if you didn't know his anthro form or personality.

Following Exile was Shag, probably a mistake in somebodies recruitment list if you ask me. He was the most cowardly member of the team, and his main use is for driving some vehicles and firing the rocket launcher, which I'm pretty sure he's learned how to point it in the right direction. He's a sheepdog of some sort from Switzerland, which may or may not explain why he's the way he is.

Finally, Hunter. Hunter is a golden Labrador retriever from a dog pound somewhere in the US, and is considered to be the leader of the Road Rovers. He has a funny personality and likes to play fetch in both his canine and anthro form, and has a thing for tennis balls. Well, he still is a good leader, and in many cases, a better one than he's given credit for.

As all of them entered the room, they lined up, and entered what I learned was the "transdogmafier" or something like that. They entered them, and a plume of smoke concealed them for a minute and there was a low hissing noise. After a minute, human-like shadows could be seen in the plumes of smoke and the Road Rovers, in their human forms, stepped out. I smiled as they walked up. "All hail your arrival!" I exclaimed, rather jokingly. "Come on, let's get to the Briefing room!" Hunter called out. "Yes sir!" we all cried out in unison. We ran to the dark Briefing room, which was actually where I had been briefed after I was taken in from that desolate desert next to a country highway where the Rovers had first found me. Being the only human there besides the Master, who was the brains behind all our operations, I was questioned in here because I had knocked Hunter unconscious, thinking I was being held as a subject for a freaky medical lab, and felt I needed to desperately get out of there. Now, however, I was at home in this place.

We reached the Briefing room to find the Master, a mysterious figure with eyes as white and as bright as the blinding background lighting behind him. The only thing that wasn't white on him was his skin, as he wore a white lab coat, and had white hair. He smiled as we came in. "Welcome, Rovers," he greeted us, "you have been called here on the premise of security on the scale of the world." The Master's expression abruptly changed to that of a grave situation. "General Parvo," he began as he pulled up a picture of the metal-skulled and somewhat scary looking face that I had only seen twice before: in the newspaper, and when I was being interrogated here. The picture appeared on a large screen that normally displayed a graphic of the world. The master continued, "...with his sidekick known as the 'Groomer', have built up an army of cano-mutants and his human henchmen. An army with which they likely plans to take control of the world, like he's usually been trying to do. Our last intelligence reports placed him and his army in the island or Sicily, teaming up with the Sicilian Mafia there, who joined them out of personal interest."

Blitz raised an eyebrow, as if he knew the Mafia. Being from Germany, the closest represented country to Sicily, I wasn't surprised. The others seemed as if they didn't know the Mafia too well. Hunter, I'm sure was aware of the Mafia, since the Italian Mafia existed in the United States. I looked around at everyone as the first two names were presented. They all had a look on their faces as General Parvo and "Groomer" were named. It was a look that told me that those names were despised and somewhat hated by the Rovers. I felt the feathers of my arrows in my quiver... I was feeling similarly to them, even though I haven't fought either of them.

Exile looked around at everyone rapidly and then asked us all "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go out there and get them!" I smiled and drew my swords and held one above my head. "I'm with Exile! Who else is?" I called out. "Yeah!" Everyone else concurred. We were all soon in the hangar armed with the approximate GPS coordinates of Parvo's last known location in Sicily. We all boarded the Sky Rover, which was repaired after it's last crash in my first mission with the Road Rovers. We got into the ship and we set off for Sicily. Hunter and Colleen were piloting, and I talked to the rest about General Parvo and Groomer, so I could get to know them well enough to fight them more effectively. "So who exactly are these guys we're up against?" I asked them. Exile immediately answered, "Let's just say they're crazy-bent on taking over the world." Blitz bared his teeth at the thought of them and started out saying "I vill bite their-" "Don't make him scared of you, Blitz..." Exile interrupted, and then turned his attention to me. I noticed Shag cowering in a corner which was possibly from the very thought of our enemies. I turned my attention to Exile and Blitz. Blitz decided to direct his anger a little differently. "Ve vere sure ve drove them away, but they came baack... they always do that somehow..."

By then I knew that this was a really difficult foe we were up against that the Rovers had fought before, and with an army at their command, it seemed like we'd have a harder time figuring out a weakness in their army or themselves in general. Besides, anyone who goes by a name with the word "General" in front of it, was one of three things: 1. Crazy 2. Mentally Challenged 3. an Ex-Military Tactician

After hours of flying cross-continental, we were passing over Sicily. We couldn't land there, though, as to not attract much attention. We fortunately had a stealth feature installed on the Sky Rover so we wouldn't be detected by radar. Then it was the time when I figured out some sweet things about the vehicle, meaning it could transform into a submarine! "Freaking awesome!" I cried out as the ship morphed into a submarine. Hunter and Colleen looked back at me smiling as if I was some kid with a new toy. It didn't matter to me much, but it was just the most awesome thing I'd experienced in my life. Exile seemed to share my enthusiasm. He looked at me and had the same kind of look I had on my face. "I love being Road Rover! Jets that turn into subs, cars that turn into boats, it is awesome!" Exile and I bumped fists as the sub continued to a secret underwater cave where the sub was to dock. The sub docked in the cave and it was hooked up to a ladder with which we climbed up to the surface. They advised me to go first so it wouldn't attract much attention, since I was the only human among them. I told them I'd get some clothes that were not subtle so when the Rovers actually came out, they wouldn't attract much attention either. Being up against the Mafia, they probably had spies everywhere looking out for us, and with the invention of cell phones, they could contact Parvo the instant they saw us and report our position. Given our mission, that was the last thing we wanted.

I came to a stand in some shantytown and bought a bunch of ragged clothes with some Euros we were provided with before we left in case we needed to buy anything. I donned one of them and swiftly left the town. I prayed to God that Parvo and the Mafia didn't know that the Road Rovers had a human on their side. If they did, I might have brought the entire mission into disrepair. I brought the rest of the ragged clothes back to the Rovers where they were hiding, and they all donned their clothes I bought and we set out. We had our GPS system with a programmed coordinate point that showed where Parvo's last position was in relation to our current position. It also was fitted with a street map and a topographic map so we knew exactly where we were on the island. We were looking at almost all the time, trying not to raise our heads and reveal who we were or trying not to go into a metropolitan area and look extremely out of place there. It took us a couple days to get there, as we had to walk rather than take our road vehicle which would instantly give away our position and the direction we were heading, and we also had to avoid public transportation, since being in a bus or a taxi would risk us being discovered by the Mafia. At nights we slept for the minimal amount of hours we could healthily sleep and continued on, as tired as we were. This was met with many complaints by Blitz and Colleen. Blitz claimed he wouldn't be able to fight any good, and Colleen complained that she wouldn't get her beauty sleep in. In short, the rest of us learned to ignore it and carry on. We fortunately had some food rations with us so we wouldn't go hungry. Shag was very helpful in telling us when some suspicious person was approaching us in some ways obvious to us, but not so obvious to the those passing by. As we approached the coordinates, we stopped a good distance away from it, and slept as much as we could. Blitz, who was constantly complaining about how early we had to wake up every day as we were walking there, was relieved and fell into REM sleep almost instantly. Colleen was also relieved, claiming "Now I'll look especially good for our enemies that are going to have the sad task of facing us..." I rolled my eyes. For a martial arts master, she was for sure not as humble as any of the other martial arts masters I've heard of. The rest of us fell asleep without much ado. Hunter and I, however, stayed up a bit later and discussed some plans of ours for ways we'd attack the place and try to dismantle the army and possibly Parvo and the Groomer. As we agreed on a plan, we found a place to sleep, and we got as much sleep as we could.

I woke up to the noise of something rustling nearby. I had slept enough, so I wasn't too tired, but I remained still. My ragged clothes concealed my body pretty well with the grass I was in, and I had put some grass on top of it so the disguise would look more convincing. Suddenly, there was a collective scream, and I looked up to where it was coming from. All of the Rovers, seemingly, were pulled up in a net that was suspended in the air. _Great, they slept on a booby-trap... _I thought. I stood up and drew my swords and looked around. I sprinted around the other side to see just how many of them were in there. All of them were, except for Colleen. I found Colleen stirring right next to me as my foot tripped against her. "Colleen, wake up!" I whispered to her. She didn't get up that easily, so I had to lift her to her feet, and as soon as I did that, she woke up enough to realize what was happening. "Crikey..." she said "wha' 'appened?" "Don't ask me..." I replied as I watched some figures who were approaching, "...ask them."

General Parvo, the Groomer, and three others who I could tell were guards walked up to the net trap. All of the plans that I had thought of with Hunter were now null and void. We had to free the rest of the Rovers before we could do anything else. I put my hand over Colleen's mouth and pulled her into some foliage so they wouldn't notice us, as it was clear they hadn't noticed us already. "Well..." Parvo began, "seems like I've finally got the Road Rovers at my mercy..." he laughed a bit at the thought, "Well, why don't we go inside and we'll... get to know each other a little more..." he began to make a maniacal laugh as the Groomer took out a pair of scissors, and another guard came with a step ladder high enough to reach over the top of the net trap. The Groomer stood on the ladder and cut down the net at the single rope it was hanging by, and she had the henchmen drag the net with the rest of the Rovers trapped in it. "Yet another unexpected twist..." Hunter mused, trying to move around in the cramped quarters of the net trap, "...bummer!" I tried seriously hard not to laugh, for some reason I found that line of his rather amusing.

I turned around to find that Colleen had fallen asleep again. I put my hand over my face, wondering why a martial arts master like herself would do that. I took out my water jug and splashed the water on her face. _That_ woke her up. "Get up, Colleen!" I told her. She sat bolt upright. "Right!" she said. "Come on, help me out here," I told her as I prepped my bow and arrows. I turned and faced the direction the guards were taking the Rovers and I knocked an arrow. I sidestepped closer to them so I could get a better shot, and then I fired an arrow at one of the guards pulling the net trap. It nailed him in the back of the neck, and he fell to the ground without a sound. The others took out some guns and ran back towards our position. There were three of them. I looked at Colleen and nodded. She nodded back. We were to take them on. I knocked two arrows in my bow and fired them at two of the guards. One arrow hit one of them square in the neck, and the other hit the other guard in the side. Colleen jumped and did an aerial flip over the last guard. He tried to fire at her as she flipped over him, but he missed, and Colleen landed a karate chop square on his head, knocking him unconscious, and from what I guessed, probably gave him a concussion. I sure hoped that made him forget what had just happened. I didn't have time to go over and make sure he was dead, and nor did I really feel like doing it in front of Colleen for some reason. I went up to the guard I had hit with an arrow that was still alive, drew my right-hand sword, and held it to his neck. "Tell me where you were taking them and I'll make your passing a little easier to bear..." I told him. The guard, almost paralyzed with fear, tried to pull up his gun to shoot me, but he was too slow, as I was able to grab it out of his hand and throw it far away from the scene. "TELL ME!" I shouted at him. "I don't think you'll need to ask 'im..." Colleen said cautiously. I looked up, and General Parvo and Groomer were less than ten feet away, looking straight at us.

"Well well well, looks like the Rovers have a human companion," said the Groomer. I, stood up, drew my other sword and held both of them up, showing no fear of Parvo or the Groomer. "Let them go," I demanded. Colleen took up a defensive stance. Parvo laughed. "Why should we give them up? Our life's work has been to capture them and eliminate them! It just seems like we forgot one of them." "And who are you to even be telling us that?" the Groomer asked me, giving me an inquisitive stare. "We just rendered four of your guards useless! I don't think names are important here!" I objected. "What you need to be worrying about is your own safety!" I charged General Parvo with my swords drawn, ready to chop him down, and Colleen charged with me. At the same time, we jumped into the air, Colleen preparing to land an aerial kick on him, and I prepared to land an aerial sword chop on his head. Parvo stepped out of the way just in time to avoid being sliced in half, and we hit the ground, but we were fine, so we got up quickly, still at the ready. Groomer was standing next to Parvo, and she spoke, "Now now, you know you can't defeat us." "Wanna bet?" I retorted, sheathing my swords and pulling out a bow and arrow, aiming it at her forehead between the eyes. There was a loud rumbling noise, and a helicopter painted prominently with the Road Rovers symbol, over which was painted that red-circle-with-a-diagonal-line-through-it symbol. _Whoever thought of that wasn't too creative..._ I thought as I saw it. The helicopter landed next to the netted Rovers, and Parvo and the Groomer ran towards it, with yells of "You'll never catch us!" and things like that. I fired some arrows at it, but the wind from the chopper's rotary blades threw them off course. Just as I thought that the Rovers were going to be gone for good, I heard a sharp cutting noise. Four sharp blades were protruding from the net trap, and were moving in a circle. _Blitz!_ I thought. _How did it take him so long to remember he had those?_ Well, it was no matter now, because they were now free from that net trap! I put my bow and arrows away and got out my knife to help cut the rest of the net.

It seemed like a victory for us, until a soldier from the chopper tossed out a grenade, which exploded with what was apparently knock-out gas, and kept the Rovers sedated. I was about a football field's distance from the scene when I saw the Groomer and Parvo put the sedated Rovers into the chopper. As the four of them were loaded into the chopper, I saw the Groomer wave at Colleen and me in a sarcastic manner. I tossed my knife into the air and grabbed it by the blade. Within an instant, I had reached back and thrown that knife at the Groomer, and with a terrible spinning sound, it hit the Groomer in the shoulder. It didn't kill her, but it was about half of what I really wanted to do. The chopper then wasted no time in taking off from the scene and heading towards the fortress. I threw one of my swords at a tree, which it hit and became stuck in. "AAAAAAAAAGH!" I screamed to the high heavens, falling to my knees.

The ride back to base was rather silent. Getting back to the converted Sky Rover was not so easy, as we had to avoid the Mafia, who probably was looking for us with some deadly weapons, but we didn't really care about our disguises, since we simply had to get out of there. When we finally got to the Sky Rover, Colleen instructed me on the basics of driving it and converting it to an airborne vehicle from a submarine.

We reached the base, and I solemnly marched to the briefing room, where I fell to my knees, and repented as if this was a confession room, "Master... we have returned, and we have failed. All of the Rovers are captured, and they may be- AGH! What the...?" I looked up, and noticed that Colleen had slapped me on the back of the head. "Wh- what was that for?" "You were going mad!" she exclaimed. "Honestly, you didn't seriously think that we don't 'ave reinforcements, did you?" "Correct," the Master said. We both looked up. "It is not good news that the others have been captured, but we do have a team that can help you out with getting them back." The giant screen started going fuzzy, and then an image of a cano-mutant that looked friendly, but dressed in Star Trek fashion, appeared. "Commander, can you assemble a strike team to recover some of our ground forces?" he asked to the ally on the screen. "Yes sir," the ally, apparently a female, replied. "Good," replied the Master. "We'll send up two to help out with the operation. Can you send down a small transport to get them to the flagship?" "Right away, sir," the commander replied. The screen blacked out, and the transmission ended. "So..." I began, "who are these guys? We don't have a navy, do we?" I asked. "Not really," the Master answered, "They are the Space Rovers. I don't think Parvo will expect an attack from space, honestly. Meet the transport outside on the surface. It should be here momentarily."

Part II

"Our only problem is..." Colleen explained to the Commander and me, "that the others are held up somewhere in that fortress. Now, unless you're fine with blasting them to smithereens, we'll need to find a way to destroy that place without harming them!" Colleen was telling us about a flaw in my idea for giving the fortress a full broadside attack with the ships huge main batteries, which would have probably been enough to destroy the fortress and leave a pile of smouldering rubble. "That is true," stated the Commander. "Have you any other ideas, Kurt?" she asked me. "Just one..." I said, "We could send in a strike team to secure the others who are being held up there, and then this ship and others could blast that place sky-high with your main batteries once we've cleared the building." I braced my ears, expecting someone to shout that it was a stupid idea. Fortunately, I was met with nothing. Colleen and the Commander seemed to like the idea by the looks on their faces. "Now you're talking, Kurt!" exclaimed Colleen. "Yes, a good idea. Plus, I think that our ground strike teams haven't done much actual combat, and they've been wanting some action, not just drills and simulations," the Commander noted. "Good," I said. "Now, do you happen to have a map of the place, or at least an aerial view?" Then a table in the middle of them began to light up and became a 3D map of the fortress where the Rovers were being kept. A red light illuminated a part of it. "This," explained the Commander, "is where they're most likely to be keeping hostages." A green line illuminated a path towards the red blinking dot from a point on the roof. "This is the path you should take to get there from the roof, which is your drop-off point. The strike team and you two will carry the hostages out of the building, and only when all of them are out of the building will you call in an air strike to destroy the fortress." I nodded. "Any questions?" the commander asked. "Just one..." I replied, "What if the hostages aren't there?" I asked. "If they're not there, then they're most definitely held somewhere in this room..." The 3D map of the fortress illuminated a room at the bottom that seemed like the basement. "If they're not there, then they're here," She said sternly. "I doubt they'd be there, but that's the only other place that Parvo would hold hostages."

Before the strike on the fortress, we prepped ourselves with armor, weapons (not me or Colleen for obvious reasons), night vision goggles, and comm links to the flagship so whoever escaped the ordeal alive could call in the air strike on the fortress. Colleen, the strike team, and I boarded the small ship equipped with atmosphere shields and other things that allowed it to travel from space to Earth without difficulties. The Pilot of the ship was the last to get in, and he wasted no time in getting the ship to depart from the Flagship. The ride down was in silence, we were all mentally preparing ourselves for the stealth mission, and we didn't want to have our focus distracted. I took a good look at out attack team. There were five total, not including Colleen and me. Three were standard German Shepherds, and two were black-colored German Shepherds. _Quite fitting breeds for battle..._ I thought to myself. It made sense, since these kinds of breeds would be fitted for fighting, being used often in the Police forces around the world and in military forces for many countries, and the black-colored ones added a factor of intimidation and stealth to them, since this was a night mission, even though all of us except for Colleen were wearing black (Colleen wore the usual blue Road Rovers uniform).

The landing ship stopped quietly and hovered over the roof of the fortress, at about the same place where the Commander had shown on the 3D map. "Let's get moving!" the pilot ordered us. With that, the strike team locked and loaded their weapons, and we quickly marched out of the landing ship. Colleen took the lead, since she fought with hand-to-hand tactics. I took my bow and arrow and stayed back with the rest of the team, since they had long-range weapons. That, and Colleen remembered the route a little better than I did. We reached the point where we were to break into the top floor, and the strike team set up some small explosives in a circular shape, and then told us to clear the area. We all did, and one of the black German Shepherds pressed a button, and detonated the explosives. "Come on," one of them said, "we'd better get in there fast. Someone had to have heard that." "Got that," I replied. One by one, we all jumped down into the hole and landed on the inside. I landed on one hand and both feet, being the last one inside. We were all inside and we flipped on our night vision goggles. We began to see clearly in black and white vision, but it was crisp enough to find out what was what. Colleen waved for us to follow them. We followed her, the one of the black-colored German Shepherds first, then the three standard-colored German Shepherds, then the other black-colored German Shepherd, then me bringing up the rear. Being up in the rear of the group, I was looking back constantly, checking to see if anyone was following us. The strike team's guns were equipped with silencers, so if they needed to fight a guard off, they wouldn't have to worry about waking up the rest of the building. We rounded two corners without incident, but by the third turn before the first staircase down a level (the target room was three floors down from the top floor), we saw a cano-mutant guard pacing the hallway, clearly guarding it with a menacing weapon cradled in his arms. Colleen snuck up on the guard, and swiftly landed a karate chop on the guards neck, causing him to fall to the floor, motionless. The front member of the strike team went up to the guard, and nudged it with his foot. Nothing happened. He nodded, a silent way of saying "clear".

We headed down the staircase silently as we could. We noticed it was still dark, which was good for us, since we had the element of stealth, and consequently, the element of surprise. However, this was more heavily guarded than the top floor we were just on, so this made matters a little more difficult for us. The strike team shot down two guards the instant we got to the bottom of the staircase. Within a minute, I had fired an arrow at a human guard in the back of the neck. Colleen and I each took out a guard who saw us before they could shout out that there were intruders within about five minutes. Once we reached the next staircase, we saw that the lights were on on that level. We took off our night vision goggles and proceeded, but we realized that it was going to be harder to avoid being detected with the lights on. One of the strike team members suggested that we find a fuse box and destroy it to shut off the lights. I said that it was a good idea, but the fuse box is probably in the basement, and we'd be going way off track to do that. We should just continue with our mission. This level was deceivingly not-so-well guarded at first, but when we reached the next staircase, Colleen looked ahead and heard a group of guards heading up the stairs. "Hold your positions," I said, drawing two arrows. "We're in for a fight. Just try to get them before they start yelling anything." I guessed that the guards were there because they had lost contact with some guards upstairs. I knocked the two arrows and angled my bow horizontally. The rest of the strike team got down on one knee and pointed their blasters at the door to the staircase, awaiting the onslaught of guards, and looking through the sights of their weapons. Colleen rushed to the side of the door. She knew she could probably take them all on, but she was smart enough to not get in the line of fire, and she couldn't jump up too high in the stairwell to avoid enemy fire with an aerial attack. The guards probably already had weapons pointed up the staircase, and going down there unarmed would be suicide.

The guards rushed up the staircase. There were seven of them, I think. All of them were human guards. Well, as soon as they saw us at the top of the staircase, waiting for them to come, they were probably in shock of the sight, which I don't blame them for. I mean, seriously, not many people _wouldn't_ be scared if they saw a host of enemies in a line pointing guns at them, right? Anyway, the strike team didn't need to be told when to fire. They fired away at the guards coming up the staircase, who were momentarily struck with shock. Most of them fell before they could pull up their weapons to fire them, but a few of them were lifting them up as they were hit. The strike team had shot down all of the guards before I could fire my arrows. They all fell down the stairs, making a loud, dull, and low clattering noise. I knew that anyone with functioning ears could hear that racket. "OK, let's get out of here before more guards get to the scene. I don't think any guard could have not heard that," I told the strike team. They all nodded in agreement, as did Colleen, who continued to lead the strike team to the room, albeit at a quicker pace. I drew my swords and put away my bow and arrow, sensing that we'd be in for more hand-to-hand combat soon. Colleen suddenly stopped in front of a door. I was sure this was the place where the Rovers were being held. One of the strike team members placed an explosive on the doorhandle/lock, and backed away. He then detonated the explosive, and we all ran in. I ran in just in time to see a blaster bolt go whizzing by my head. I took up a defensive stance and walked backwards, waiting to parry something.

Reaching the center of the room, we found that the Rovers were being tied to chairs and were tied also with gags, to prevent them from talking. Maybe it was because they were so loud-mouthed to their enemies, that the enemy wanted them just to be shut up. But then again, they could just have shot them, right? Then it hit me. This was a set-up. "Circle them, face outwards! Take defensive stances!" I ordered the strike team. The team wasted no time in following my orders, and I proceded to cut the ropes off Hunter. I then untied the gag on Hunter, who immediately spoke, "Kurt, this isn't a trap! Just get us out of here!" I had already begun to cut the ropes off Exile, but then I stopped and realized two things: 1. Hunter doesn't talk like that. 2. Exile should have been able to break these ropes. 3. Blitz could have used his claws to cut off the ropes and then free the others. If my knives could cut these ropes, so could Blitz's claws. I looked at Hunter, and then I pulled his head close to mine, so our eyes were about less than a foot away from each other. I looked into his eyes deeply, and saw something that set off an alarm in my head. "RUN!" I shouted. "GET OUT OF HERE!" What I had seen was the faintest glint of digital numbers counting down that were reflected in the apparently fake glass of fake Hunter's eyes. It must have been an internal thing, and I was sure that the rest of them were fake, since they didn't seem to be struggling against the ropes much. The instant the last of us left the room, there was a huge explosion in the room, and it knocked me and one of the strike team members onto the ground on our bellies. We quickly got up, and began to run to the nearest staircase leading down. This time, Colleen and I took up the front, me holding my swords and Colleen prepared for some major hand-to-hand action.

Surprisingly, we reached the basement without coming across any guards. This meant one of two things: 1. The guards had all fled to the floor where the explosion was. 2. The guards were regrouping somewhere else to launch a full-scale attack on our party. We found the Rovers hanging from the ceiling, being held in by some sort of forcefield. "It is trap!" called out Exile. The rest of the Rovers were pushing their weight on the forcefield, trying to get out. "Something had told me that already," I replied. "Someone find some electric wires and cut as many as you can until this forcefield goes down," I ordered the strike team. Three of them nodded, and they ran off to the walls, which clearly had tons of wires on it. The rest of us prepared for any attackers coming our way. "Got it!" one of the strike team members called out, and there was a small audible spark of electricity, and the forcefield went down. The rest of the strike team lent the Rovers their sidearms, which were mainly puppy blasters and small laser pistols. "Come on, let's get out of here before the guards arrive." I told the Rovers. Suddenly, the lights went off. Blitz was all freaked out about the dark. "Ah no! They're going to shoot us in the daaark! Ve're all dead!" he cried out, rather litterally crying in a way. I rolled my eyes. "Night vision, for whoever has it," I said to the Strike team. Colleen, the strike team, and I all put our goggles over our eyes and flipped the power switches on. We saw nothing threatening, taking a 360-degree view, turning around all the way. "Everyone, put a hand on the back of someone who can see. Just make sure you never take your hand off until you can see." I told the other Rovers. They obediently did so, and we fled the room, trying to get up one level to get out onto solid ground.

When we reached the staircase, we could see light at the top of it. It was probably a trap, waiting for us up there. We decided to take out what we could from here, and then deal with the rest later. We flipped off our night vision, and one of the strike team members took out a grenade and threw it up the stairs. There was audible panic and scrambling before it exploded. Not only did it have explosive force, but it created a smokescreen. "They sure didn't see that coming," I complimented the strike team member who had thrown the grenade. He nodded, accepting it. We all ran up the steps, and we backed away from the scene, pointing our weapons to the cloud of smoke as we backed away. We looked around for a front door, but we had difficulty finding any directional signs that would lead us there, and we didn't have enough explosives to just blast our way through walls to get out. We tried the maze technique of always keeping our hands on the wall to find the exit, but that was abandoned after some near misses of guards marching to the other scene we had just fled. We all tried to stay quiet as much as we could. I looked at Colleen, "Hey," I asked her softly, "did you happen to remember a way out of here?" "Ah, don't ask her..." Blitz interrupted, "she doesn't even remember who _I_ am!" "Quite the contrary..." Colleen replied slyly. She remembered that it was possible to get out by just taking as many doors that lead towards a single direction as possible. This tactic actually worked for a while. We soon came across some guards, where we quickly engaged them. The Rovers and the strike team shot most of them down, and the rest had their weapons hacked up by Blitz's claws, as they got too close to him. They dropped what was left of their weapons and ran in fear.

We did eventually reach the front door, which we found out was electronically operated, and the unsettling fact that the opening mechanism was painstakingly slow. Exile laughed a bit, and used what I like to call his "repair vision" on the door's electronic operating board to try to make it go faster. He... overdid it, to say the least. It went up so fast that it broke some of the wall that was supporting it! "Come on," said Hunter, "let's get out of here before that door falls on us!" We wasted no time in getting out, but when we got out, we saw the two people we didn't want to see: General Parvo and the Groomer. The Groomer had a sling on the arm where I had hit her shoulder with a throwing knife. The strike team held up their weapons and aimed them at the two standing in front of us. "You thought you had us all figured out, didn't you?" said the Groomer. I grinned and pulled out my comm link, and said into it, "Fire all main batteries, repeat, fire all main batteries." I looked up to the two in front of us and told them, "You're going to be worrying about a few more things than just us and your arm..." I said cooly. There was a loud rumble, and huge laser beams came down from the sky, heding straight towards the fortress. "Move out!" I told the others. The strike team and the rest of the Rovers ran for it, running past Parvo and the Groomer, who were just staring at the scene unfolding in front of them, struck with awe and shock from the scene. They didn't say anything, but I'm sure they were thinking "Why did this have to happen?" or something to that effect. Our backs were turned to the scene when the fortress exploded, as we were running away from it so we wouldn't be hit by the resulting explosion, so we didn't really see what happened to Parvo and the Groomer.

We said our thak-yous and goodbyes to the strike team as they boarded a transport ship to take them back to the flagship some time after the fortress was confirmed to be destroyed. We found no trace of Parvo or the Groomer, though. As the strike team finished boarding, I stood and saluted them. They had fought bravely and were very skilled at what they were trained to do. They saluted back at us, and the door to the ship closed, and the transport ship took off and flew back to the flagship. The Rovers and I rejoiced that we had escaped the clutches of our worst enemies, and we recounted everything that happened to us. Apparently, the Rovers that had been captured were "interrogated" by the Sicilian Mafia. (who better to do that in Sicily?) We did eventually get picked up by an automated ship that flew from base to us in Sicily, and we began the long flight home.

When we got home, the Master went on to thank us, tell us that we were all great in what we did, and he went on to put special compliments to Colleen and me for putting our lives on the line to save the others, and to the other Rovers for not giving up any vital information to the enemy. "To the power of the pack!" excliamed Hunter. They all howled, and I raised my sword to the sky in victory. I was glad I hadn't lost the only family I had. To celebrate, we threw a party, with drinks (soda, of course), food, and such. We partied a bit in the kitchen, and then we went more towards those "transdogmafier" things. We were laughing about some joke Exile told, until I slipped on some drink that I spilled. I slipped into the "transdogmafier" tube, and then everyone stopped laughing and went to get me out of there, but the smoke already had filled up the tube. "Agh! Get me out of here!" I yelled out, but by then the smoke had cleared. I stepped out and looked at them. "Well, am I all right?" I asked them. They were speechless. _But for what?_ I thought. I felt my face, and it sure didn't feel the way it was supposed to. My eyes widened and my pupils dialated. I ran to the bathroom to look into the mirror. I had become a German Shepherd cano-mutant with the Road Rovers blue armor. Fortunately, I didn't look like the ones under Parvo's control, which was good, because those things were, if you ask me, ugly as sin. I couldn't believe it. I did still have my weapons, but was I still able to use them? I drew my swords, and was able to weild them the same way I normally did. I still also had the strength to draw my bowstring back, so I was actually not changed too much except in looks, but who knows, maybe I have some sort of other power I got from the machine like the others did. I stepped out of the bathroom and found the Rovers looking at me. I smiled, "I guess I fit in a little better, then, don't I?" The others laughed at the joke. I fit in fine before this, but now, I just looked like I belonged. "To the power of the pack, and it's new member!" I exclaimed. We all let out a howl that shook the sky, and I was probably the happiest I'd been since I joined the Road Rovers. Now, I knew, I was ready to take on the world, and whatever it wanted to throw at me.


	3. Book 3: Origins of Kurt

Part I

"AGH!" I shouted, but then trailed off, realizing where I was. I was still breathing heavily and... well, not sweating. At least, I haven't been physically able to sweat ever since I slipped into that transdogmafier-thingy and became what people around here call a "cano-mutant". I prefer the term "anthro German Shepherd", honestly, but it's the same thing. I had the weirdest dream that made me wake up. Well, weird _and_ scary, that is. I was on some operating table, with that really freaky face of a man with what I'm sure is a metal skull and protruding veins on his neck, looking down at me. I think he was laughing, and I woke up when he raised a syringe.

"Good freaking Lord..." I mused to myself as I jumped out of my bed. "I don't see how I wasn't so scared of him before, but I am now... just doesn't make sense..." The last time I saw him, I was running past him as cannons of Star Wars proportions from space were blasting his fortress on the island of Sicily to bits. I didn't know if he survived it or not, but I sure hoped not...

I shadow boxed a bit, trying to get myself in a non-paranoid mood. I certainly did not want to feel like that today or any day for that matter. After I threw an elbow-smash move to the side of my imaginary opponent's head, I stopped and got dressed, getting my metallic white-blue Road Rovers armor on. Doing that made me feel a lot like I was part of a team; a team that wouldn't let me down; a team that would help protect me if I couldn't protect myself. I felt a lot better, looking at what was now my anthro-German Shepherd self in the mirror with my Road Rovers armor on. I then armed myself with my two longswords, my bow, and my quiver of arrows. _Wow,_ I thought to myself, _I look so badass..._ I laughed in my moment of vanity, and then let it go. To this day I don't know why I thought that to myself, but I guess it's because I subconsciously wanted to boost my self-esteem or something like that. I stretched out my neck a bit and then headed over to the kitchen to get some breakfast. I apparently hadn't lost my taste for human food, as I still couldn't eat the dog food that most of the others liked to eat. But then again, they were, or rather, _are_ dogs, so they kinda grew up eating that stuff. The kitchen was empty, as the rest of the Rovers were still in the homes of their owners, who were the leaders of their respective countries, in their canine form. I threw some eggs onto a frying pan and began making an omlette for myself.

After about ten minutes of remembering how to make one and then actually making an omlette that was for the most part edible and filling, I sat down and started to eat. I had only gotten about a few bites into it, when a loud noise came blaring from almost all directions. It was strange... it was the sound I had prepared myself to hear every day at this place, yet somehow it was the one I didn't want to hear at the same time. It was the General Quarters alarm. I took a huge bite out of my omlette and gulped down what I could of my milk and orange juice in about a minute or less and got up, taking out my bow and arrow, knocking an arrow so I'd be ready. I sprinted towards the briefing room, wanting to know what the Master had to say on this. Upon almost breaking down the door to get in there, I saw no Master, but rather just a map on the screen on the wall where a map of the world was usually displayed. This map was of the underground laboratory, with a flashing red area where I guessed was where the intrusion had happened. A door burst open on the other side of the room, and I turned and fired an arrow at what I found out was one of the intruders, hitting his neck. He fell to the ground motionless. "Guys..." I said to myself, although it was directed to the rest of the Rovers, "I kinda need you all right now..."

Little did I know, all of the Rovers had a little signal on their collars that lets them know when a fellow Rover is in danger. They all went off at about the same time as, or a few seconds after I had turned to face one of the intruders. Well, not that me not knowing about it would have changed anything, only that if I had known about it, I would have felt my chances of survival a little better when I realized there were intruders. All of the Rovers, in their canine forms, had dropped what they were doing, which varied from sleeping to eating, and headed to their chutes that took them to the underground lab. They got there in about five minutes from their respective cities of Berlin in Germany, Bern in Switzerland, London in the UK, Moscow in Russia, and Washington, D.C. in the US, as I was told, and they quickly went through the transdogmafier thing. A few of them armed themselves with some blasters, but otherwise they were ready to help defend the place. They were all sure it was me that they were alerted about, since the rest of them were there, so they went out to find me.

I wanted to head back to the transdogmafier room to see if any reinforcements had come, but it was in the opposite direction of the intrusion. I wanted to fend off these intruders before they could occupy more of the laboratory. I knocked another arrow and moved out of the room. As I left the door, I immediately saw another intruder right in front of me. This time, I got a closer look at who these intruders were. To my shock, it was one of the cano-mutants of General Parvo's army. General Parvo, by the way, was the guy I saw in my dream earlier that morning. Anyway, that freaky-looking thing in front of me, fangs showing, possibly foaming at the mouth or just plain drooling, locked eyes with me. I couldn't fire an arrow in time to defend myself, as he was armed with a blaster. So, I did something crazy, and stuck him with my arrow, as if it was a knife, through the gut. Obviously, he didn't see _that _coming! He fell to his knees, not dead, but in shock and possibly in extreme pain. I knocked him out by executing a roundhouse kick to the head, and continued on. _Man, where's that strike team when you need them?_ I thought to myself, thinking how effective those guys were when Colleen and I stormed Parvo's fortress in Sicily. They could have been _extremely_ useful right now...

Blitz, a Doberman from Germany, shot down a few intruders with his deceivingly small blaster pistol as he and the rest of them got to a fork in the hallways. Hunter, a golden retriever from the United States, and also the leader of the Rovers when they're out in the field, determined that the group should split up, so they could both look for me and more effectively drive the intruders out. Hunter and Colleen, a collie from the United Kingdom, went one way, and Blitz went the other way with Exile, a Siberian Husky from Russia, and Shag, a rather cowardly sheepdog from Switzerland. They were all faced with relatively little resistance until Blitz, Exile, and Shag got to the briefing room, a lot closer to where I was. Hunter and Colleen were faced with the task of clearing out the intruders that had bypassed my position. Those intruders that Blitz, Exile, and Shag faced didn't notice them at first, however, as they were more concerned with dealing with me.

I don't remember exactly what they were trying to do when the intruders surrounded me. I had tried to wipe them all out, but their numbers were larger than I expected. I think they were either trying to kill me or sedate me, but whatever they were trying to do, it was rather painful and slow. I think one of the intruders tried to hit me with some syringe, but a few long, sharp claws protruded from his chest, and he fell to the ground. It was then when I saw Blitz, Exile, and Shag. "I was wondering where you guys were!" I exclaimed. I turned and began slashing away at the other intruders, and was almost instantly joined by Blitz, who's the one that has those sharp, extendable metal claws that can cut through most anything. He either hacked up the intruders themselves, or hacked their weapons to the point of uselessness, causing them to run in fear. Exile also joined, and with his superhuman strength was able to throw punches that caused the intruders to go flying to the walls, and falling unconscious upon hitting them. We were able to fend off all of the intruders in the immediate area, and we got rid of the intruders that were out cold, so they wouldn't wake up anywhere near this laboratory. Shag, who had cowered away from the fight, helped out with that. He was at least strong enough to carry the unconscious intruders to the automated jet that would drop them off in the middle of nowhere.

Blitz, Exile, Shag and I left the welcoming for later and immediately went to the source of the intrusion. The intruders themselves had subsided, but there was still a massive hole in the wall. Exile, using his ice vision, froze it up as a temporary solution until the intruders were dealt with. "Kurt," Blitz began, "ve need to go help the osers! Hunter and Colleen could be outnumbered!" he exclaimed in his low-pitched and heavy German accent. "Not a bad idea," I said, "I was going to ask about them, but I guess I don't need to now." Exile nodded in agreement. "Then what are we waiting for?" Exile exclaimed, "Let's go help fellow Road Rover!" Shag, however, was less enthusiastic. He was in the corner whimpering. Exile and Blitz rolled their eyes. He needed to be part of the team, but how could we get him to come along? I had an idea. "Hey Shag," I said, "come with us, and I'll let you finish off some food I didn't finish eating in the kitchen, OK?" It kinda worked too well, to say the least. I got a huge tongue on my face, which I quickly wiped off. "Ah... you're welcome, Shag..." I said, kinda shocked and a bit disgusted at the same time. "Come on, let's go!" I exclaimed, shaking it all off mentally and physically. We were off to where Hunter and Colleen should be, according to how well Blitz and Exile knew the laboratory, and our heightened senses of smell.

We rounded a few corners, Blitz, Exile and I striking down some intruders by either arrow, blaster fire, swords, claws, punches, kicks, or Exile's heat/ice vision. We rounded another corner to find Hunter and Colleen held by two intruders, both holding them from behind them with blasters pointed at their heads, pretty much as hostages. Blitz and I pointed our ranged weapons at them, trying to aim at the intruders behind them. _Their reflexes can't be __that __good, can they? _ I thought as I took aim at the head of the intruder peeking his head out from behind Colleen's. The last thing I wanted to do, however, was fire an arrow and watch the intruder pull Colleen's head in the path of it just in time. I doubt I could live with myself for doing that, honestly. I thought hard and fast, trying to think of something to get us out of this situation. Then, it hit me. I had the perfect idea, but this would have to happen quickly, and I had to let the others know what to do quietly, so the intruders wouldn't hear or know. "Ex..." I said loud enough for Exile to hear. He cautiously walked over to my left side. I mumbled a few things to him that were barely audible, even to myself, but Exile nodded in understanding slightly. I looked over to Blitz, who was already looking at me. I lowered my bow and arrow and made a few subtle hand gestures, which Blitz apparently understood also. I sure hoped he did, at least. If this went wrong, Hunter and Colleen's heads could be vaporized. I held my breath. I aimed my bow and arrow back at the intruders, who immediately adjusted their grips on Hunter and Colleen, and positioned their blasters again to look more menacing. I let my breath out slowly. I looked at Blitz. I then angled the arrow point upwards a bit, then let it fall back to the solid part of the bow, making a slight tapping sound. He nodded. I looked to Exile, and did the same thing again. He also nodded. I looked at the intruders, then tapped my arrow to my bow once more.

It went swiftly. Exile used his repair/disrepair vision to render the blaster on Colleen non-functional, and Blitz aimed and fired his blaster at the blaster of the intruder holding Hunter, knocking it out of his hand. I jumped and rolled in between the shocked intruders and hostages, impaling the one holding Hunter with my arrow through the back, and then pulled out my knife and stabbed the other holding Colleen, who was still trying to figure out why his blaster wouldn't fire. "Shag!" I called, "Get these guys on the next flight outta here." They were still breathing, but were probably unconscious from blood loss and pain. Shag, who hesitantly approached them, but then seemed to feel better knowing that they were still breathing, hurried along with his task. "Thanks for the save, guys," Hunter commended us. "I seriously thought we were toast!" "Don't mention it," said Exile, smiling, "it is always pleasure to help fellow Road Rover!" "I've gotta hand it to Kurt though," commented Colleen, "I would've _never_thought that hand signals could have gotten through to his head!" she joked, motioning her head to Blitz, obviously talking about him. Blitz bared his fangs a bit, clearly pissed off, but I put hand on his shoulder. "Don't take it personally, man..." I said, "I should be telling _you_that I didn't know you were that good of a shot!" I complimented, patting his shoulder, smiling. Blitz lightened up a good deal, but he gave an evil look at Colleen, still. I rolled my eyes, wondering if this would ever end.

We all went back to the briefing room, mainly to check if the Master was there, or if he was hurt. Apparently, he wasn't, but he had for sure known about the intrusion. "I've already sent a repair crew to fix the break-in point," he began, "and there aren't any more of the intruders left in here, and the ones that are unconscious have had their memories wiped before they were dropped off." Shag entered the briefing room shortly after he said that. "Now," he continued, "this break-in has told me one thing: General Parvo quite possibly knows where this place is." I bit my lip. That was anything but good. "How he found out escapes me, but however he found out, he's likely kept the coordinates in one of two places: Either in his supercomputer that he has stored in an unknown location, or on a jumpdrive that he carries on his person at all times. We need to first get that jumpdrive, in the case that it's on that, so he cannot upload it to other computers, sending it to others who are against our cause. Parvo, as you know, does not have a base in Sicily anymore, after it was destroyed a month ago." The screen lit up showing a blinking dot on Sicily, which then showed an image of the fortress above the dot, with a red X-shape over it. "However, our spies tell us that he's been regrouping in the area about where we found Kurt." My eyes widened, and my pupils dilated. All the others looked at me. The screen lit up again, with a dot somewhere in the Mojave Desert. I didn't recall anything being there, but then again, I didn't remember anything about two months or so before I was walking through that desert. Well, I knew it was about two months when I looked at the calendar in the laboratory after I was rehabilitated. It read as June, and my last memory before the incident was in April.

"Well," I began, "either you guys didn't tell me something when you found me, or that fact is just one _complete_fluke!" I said, putting sarcasm on the latter suggestion. I looked around at all of the Rovers, and I saw Colleen and Exile bite their lips. I looked at them and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?" I said. "Ah..." Colleen began, "well, when I running a medical checkup after I found you, I had to remove your weapons from you, and they had these tags on 'em, see... but I didn't look at them too closely, 'cause I had to tend to your health... so I gave them to Exile so 'e could look at them..." I looked at Exile. He bit his lip again. "Eh, let me go get them..." he said, running off to get them. I looked back at the rest of them. "So, these tags you're talking about... they said something that you felt it better that I didn't know, am I right?" They hesitated, and then nodded a bit reluctantly. "Kurt," the Master began, "the tags Exile is getting are only a part of it. There was a tattooed number on your neck that we removed, with this symbol above it," he explained, then motioning to the screen, which changed from the map of the world to the symbol I had seen on the chopper in Sicily, which was the Road Rovers symbol with that red circle with a diagonal line on top of it. I had seen all areas of my neck through mirrors many times before, and I don't recall ever seeing anything there, both before and after the Rovers found me in the desert. "So," the Master continued, "you were apparently a test subject of General Parvo, and we figured it better for you to forget that for two reasons: 1. In case of the off-chance that you could have been loyal to him. Now, that was unlikely since you were walking away from the facility there. 2. For your own good, so you wouldn't have to re-live any memories from there. I can't even begin to imagine how painful those must have been..." he explained. I cut him off, "Well don't worry about the first one, since I've fought him and hate his guts now, and the second one, well don't worry about that either, because they've been coming back to me already in dreams." Exile then came back into the room with four tags. He dropped them into my hand, and I looked at them. On one side, they had that symbol that was still on the screen. On the other side, they said "Future Property of Project #44972 - HTC Project #972. For use ONLY in conditions of the success of this project."

My eyes widened. "Jesus..." I said quietly. I looked up at the others. They were all looking at the floor. Well, technically I could have taken this two ways: either that this was some lie that I needed to blame them for, or forgive them because they did it for my own good. I settled on the second one. I didn't want to ruin my relationship with the Rovers, who were probably the closest friends I ever had, and probably ever would have. "Guys..." I said, "I do have reasons to be mad, but I'm not, OK?" I finished, smiling. They all looked up at me. They had a bit of a smile on their faces, and they all looked like they were about to cry. Blitz then started to actually cry, and boy, he was bawling! So he ran over to me and hugged me to the point where I was almost suffocating! "Oh, Kuuurt!" he cried, still sobbing, "I vas so sure you'd haaate us...!" he cried. "Ah I wouldn't do that, Blitz," I said calmly, "you guys are like the family I never had!" Well, that initiated a group hug from everyone, and yeah, it was one heck of a mushy scene for some time. I'm not really that kind of person who usually partakes in that kinda stuff, but this was... well, an exception, I guess.

Well, after a while, we got our emotions under control, and we got back to talking about what we were to do about General Parvo and the fact that he knew where our laboratory was. We all soon agreed on the idea that we should just storm the darn place and destroy the supercomputer. I told them I'd deal with the jumpdrive Parvo has with him, since I now knew I had some personal business to sort out with him. By the looks on their faces, I knew that they wanted to help out, and they were probably thinking of a way to help me out indirectly. I didn't think they'd actually do it, but I didn't think much of it at the time.

Part II

I was shadow-fighting in the passenger area of the Sky Rover, which was most of our second choices as to getting to the area where they'd found me. We wanted to be a bit nostalgic and take the same bus that the Rovers were in when they found me, but it was a bit too flashy and obvious. It was like we were asking Parvo's guards to launch rockets at us. Not like the Sky Rover was saying anything different, but only this was something much harder to launch rockets at. I also offered to give some of the other Rovers some swordfighting lessons, but they said they were fine with how they did things. They wanted to have diverse fighting styles in their pack, so they let each develop their own fighting styles independently. Exile was more brute force, Colleen was more martial arts, Blitz was bite-happy when he was fighting, and Hunter was more of a weapons and speed character when it came to fighting.

We had gotten about 75 of the way there when an alarm went off, saying that someone had locked on to us with a missile or rocket. "Everyone, fasten your seatbelts! I'm gonna try and evade this!" called out Hunter, who was piloting. We all did so, and Hunter began to execute a variety of evasive maneuvers. We barely avoided the single missile that was launched at us, at the low cost of a scratch on the wing from the rocket's fins. "Hunter, 'ave you been in the simulator or something?" Colleen asked. "Actually, yes," he replied, "if you consider video games with controls similar to the ones here a simulator, that is..." he added. Everyone laughed a bit. Hunter quickly landed the ship so that it wouldn't get fired at again, and we all got out, prepared to fight just in case there was an army or security force there to intercept us. Fortunately, we found none, so we promptly went on our way.

Blitz and Exile scouted out for us, and radioed back to us that the coast was clear to where they were. Thus, we followed up to them. When we got there, however, we noticed that the route from there to the compound wasn't so clear. There was security akin to Fort Knox at the front gate. Human guards (anthro guards were not there because, I figured, it wouldn't be such a good idea if any random person happened upon this place) were patrolling the area whose range our position was just beyond. They were armed with what looked to me like MP5s and AK-47s, which scared Shag out of his wits, running all the way back to the Sky Rover to take cover. I rolled my eyes as Hunter ran off to convince him to come back. The guards were out of range for my bow and most of the weapons except for Shag's rocket launcher, which we didn't even bother bringing, as Shag kept firing it in the wrong direction in training, and Exile's heat/ice vision. We had two choices: 1. Charge at the front entrance and run the very likely chance of getting shot to pieces, 2. Find an alternate route inside. Everyone, being sane, chose the second option unanimously. ("Noooo! I don't vant to turn into Sviss Cheese!" pleaded Blitz) Problem was, we didn't know of any alternate routs inside. We could, however, hack into the compound's security system and try to find one. So we went to the Sky Rover, where Hunter was still trying to convince Shag to come out of his hiding. Colleen, who I never knew was any good with computers (she barely even knew how to drive a normal civilian car, for crying out loud!), went at it, and found a back door which they never check. But, the reason they never check it is because it caved in a long time ago, which posed a decent problem. Well, it did for all of about ten seconds until Exile had to remind us that he could blast through the door with his heat vision. It was a good plan, we all had to admit. Still, I was wary of the safety of our HQ, as I had a bad feeling this was just a way to get us away from HQ, so I excused myself and I went to a private area and put on my headset.

"Yes, Kurt?" the Master responded as he picked up. "Master, can you run a quick security check of HQ, just so we know this isn't a setup or anything? I've got a bad feeling..." I began, but Master cut me off "I do not think that this is a setup. I doubt that seriously. Parvo found out what he wanted to know: the location of my laboratory. I doubt he'd try to enter this place again, as I have more security forces that are mainly unseen by the Rovers, and they are on full alert, and have already secured every square inch of land and sky within a ten-mile radius of the lab. You have nothing to worry about for my safety, Kurt. I am more prepared than you think." Even though I couldn't see him, I got the feeling that he was smiling from the tone of his voice. "Understood, Master," I said. "Carry on, then, Kurt," he concluded in the same tone. "Yes, sir." The transmission ended, and I put away my headset and headed back to the Rovers. "Sorry guys," I said, "just needed to check up on some things, that's all."

Having agreed on the plan of attack from the caved-in entrance, we snuck up behind the compound, where security seemed minimal. Hunter had managed to strike up a bit of courage in Shag that was enough to get him to go in with us. I wasn't sure exactly what he told Shag, but that couldn't possibly mean a bad thing, could it? _Ah, I'll ask Hunter about it later, _I thought. I looked at Blitz and Exile. Blitz pulled out a blaster pistol with a silencer attached to it, and Exile just nodded. I turned and looked at Colleen, who also nodded. I turned also to Hunter, and he pulled out his gas-bomb-that-looks-like-a-tennis-ball launcher. I held up my arm, bent at a 90-degree angle, and then thrust it forward in a silent gesture that meant "Fire!" All who had ranged weapons pulled out fired them at a guard. Most of them were either hit by a blaster shot, frozen solid, or were asleep from the sleeping gas grenade. The rest that were still standing were instantly neutralized with a few swift karate moves from Colleen. It all happened so fast that I couldn't help but say "I am not worthy!" Everyone laughed at that, knowing it was a joke, and we carried on to the door. Everything was done silently, so there were no alarms sounding, and no guards running or anything like that.

We were at the door, about to watch as Exile obliterated the door and whatever was caved in behind it when we heard something behind us. "Oh noooo! It's the gaaards! Ve're deaaad!" Blitz cried softly to the rest of us. "I didn' know they were organized enough to march in unison, though..." commented Colleen. Half confused, half in fear for our lives, we all turned around, expecting to be shot the next second.

Shag barked out in glee, so loudly that I had to hold his muzzle shut so the guards on the other side of the building wouldn't hear. It was the strike team that had helped us in Sicily! I looked at Hunter. "So this is what you told Shag to get him out of his little corner, huh?" I asked. "Eh, yeah..." he replied, scratching the back of his neck as if he was a bit embarrassed. "Do not worry, Kurt," said Exile, who seemed glad that the strike team was there, "compound is big, full of guards. I think we need strike team here. It is no different from Sicily, right?" Colleen and I took a good look at the building from our vantage point. It sure reminded us of Parvo's fortress in Sicily. Well, it reminded me, at least. I'm pretty sure Colleen thought similarly, from the look on her face.

When the strike team reached us, we all greeted each other, and I took the time to learn everyone's names, as I had failed to do so back in Sicily mainly because we were on a time constraint. We did have one here, yes, but I thought it was worth taking the time to find out. I had a feeling we might need to call them by their names sooner or later. The standard colored German Shepherds were Blake, Gunther, and Gordon. The black colored German Shepherds were Kyle and Jack. Blake and Jack were the explosives experts, and the rest were just all-around skillful. Gunther, however, was more or less the informal leader of the team, as he was the oldest out of all of them. He was fine with the Road Rovers giving them orders, but if ever it was necessary, everyone, including the other members of the strike team, agreed that Gunther would lead the team.

After the Rovers greeted and got to know the team in their own way (I don't need to go into details, here), Exile went straight to getting through the door with his heat vision. After he had melted a hole big enough for us to walk through, we went through. The first thing we noticed was that this place was dark. Apparently since this doorway was never used, nobody was really down there. We got out flashlights, since we figured nobody was down there, and carried on. The strike team fixed some flashlights on their blasters so they didn't have to carry two things at once. What I soon noticed was that it smelled pretty bad down there. It didn't take long for the rest to notice as well. "Eew!" exclaimed Colleen, "It's a sewer down 'ere! I'll ruin my fur!" "It's already ruined my nose!" replied Hunter. "It is Blitz's kind of place..." Exile mumbled. I chuckled at the comment, and looked at Blitz, who was bouncing erratically on his toes, apparently afraid to step on anything down here. Shag was grabbing onto Hunter, having him carry Shag, more scared than Blitz seemed to be. As if on cue, Blitz saw what Shag was doing, and followed suit, only he jumped to me. It felt rather ackward, and I couldn't really lift him for that long. I rolled my eyes and took a look at the strike team, who had put on particle-protection masks. They laughed a bit, and then Kyle, who was nearest to me, motioned in one direction, where we could see a door that hopefully would lead out. Having seen that, everyone hurried over towards the door. We finally found bare concrete to put our feet on, and it was a huge relief for all of us, especially me, as I was able to set down Blitz, who had stopped cowering about the previous surface.

We apparently weren't the first people to be walking around down there. There were a couple showerheads next to the door, one which dispensed water, the other dispensed some strong antibacterial solution. Quite a relief to most of us, so we took full advantage of those to clean off everything that touched the ground. Besides, we didn't want our position to be given away because we smelled like the sewer. "Were you aware that this was a sewer?" Hunter asked Colleen. "If I did, we woul'n't be down 'ere, Huntie," Colleen answered. "Figures," said Gordon. I just went to trying the door, which was locked. Exile was about to melt through the door when Blitz stepped in. "I vill get us out of here!" he proclaimed in his low, more courageous sounding voice. With that he extended his claws and cut a hole around the door handle, allowing it to be opened by just pushing it. "What a time to show courage..." mused Kyle.

Blake volunteered to check out the area behind the door first. We didn't have any objection to that, but Blitz wanted to cover for him. "Quite a better time to show courage, if you ask me..." I whispered to Kyle, who laughed a bit. Blitz fixed the silencer on his puppy blaster and followed Blake through the door. They were behind the door for about ten minutes before both Blake and Blitz came running back through, looking like they'd just seen a ghost! "Good God..." whispered Blake. "Ve're sooo deaaad..." added Blitz. "What? What is it?" the rest of us asked. "Hundreds..." stammered Blake. "Thousands!" said Blitz, "All maaarching like they're under the commaaand of... of_him!_" "Him?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Think... Europe... World War II," panted Blake. "Oh... right..." we all mused. We all knew who they were talking about by then. Hunter and I were not as convinced as the rest of them, so we went in to take a good look at this supposed army Blake and Blitz had just seen. We saw a short hallway, and we each walked to the end of it, and then each of us put our backs to either side of the hallway. Hunter nodded, and we both peered around the corner. What I saw was shocking: At least 1,000 of Parvo's soldiers, both human and mutants, goose-stepping into some formation, in what seemed to have been a converted airplane hangar with that "No Road Rovers" symbol painted on the floor and on the wall they were all facing. My jaw dropped. _We are__not __going through here... _I thought. I moved my head back, away from the corner. Hunter was already looking at what I had seen, and he looked a lot like Blake and Blitz did. I nodded, and said "yeah, we're not going this way..." Hunter nodded in agreement. We headed back to the door and went through. "Yep, they're right..." I began, "1,000 strong, at least. We can't possibly get through-" I stopped. Something had triggered a memory from when I used to be in the lab. "Holy..." I mused, "I remembered something... don't know from where, but I think there should be a ledge where we could use some sort of rappel to climb up from that hallway. It's not in the direct line of vision of anyone in the hangar, so we shouldn't get noticed!" Jack nodded and pulled out a small pistol-like device. "Rappel, check!" he said. The rest of the Rovers and strike team pulled out a similar device. I searched around my own stuff and found mine. So we all crept out into the hallway, and looked up. Sure enough, there was a ledge there, perfectly capable of supporting a humanoid body weight. Before we fired our rappels, I did one last check on the soldiers to make sure that there weren't any that could be patrolling. Well, there weren't any patrols, but there were more soldiers coming in, forming ranks further back, closer to this small hallway. Any soldier who turned around in that area would for sure spot us. I hurried back. "Guys, let's get moving! More are coming that might see us!" We then wasted no time in firing our rappel gadgets at the ledge and climbing up. I drew one of my swords, just in case there was someone right there when we got up.

When we got up to the ledge, the only guard we saw was one cano-mutant guard, seemingly a dalmatian, patrolling in the distance, walking away from us, unaware of our presence. We quickly detached the grapple hooks from the ledge and crept forward. I looked out the window of the area to my left to see why there were a bunch of soldiers being assembled in the vast, open space. I looked in the direction which all of the soldiers were facing to see what they were looking at, and saw the same painted insignia on the wall, but also a podium. Apparently they were about to listen to some sort of propaganda speech by Parvo or some other high-ranking person in this facility. The scene seemed strangely familiar, somehow, but I couldn't remember anything specific. "Bring back memories?" Exile asked behind me. I turned around, trying to relax a bit. "Eh, kinda..." I replied, "just seems a bit familiar to me, that's all." He nodded and we pressed on. We tried to find a map of the place, but to no avail. "Figures..." commented Kyle, "anyone who works here should be expected to know this place well enough to patrol this place, I would think." "Tha' makes sense," said Colleen, "but it still leaves the problem of finding the supercomputer and Parvo." Right after she said that, we heard voices. We all hid behind a wall, as the voices were heading towards us. "...here?" said one voice. "Should be," said another.

"I could've sworn I heard their voices..."

"Well there's nothing here! You do know the penalty of raising a false alarm, don't you?"

"I do, I do! OK? Not alerting the rest of an intruder is probably just as bad..."

"Well, you're lucky that I don't intend on telling the supervisor of security here about this. If I did, you'd be way outta luck, man..."

"Let's just look around just to be sure..."

"Suit yourself, but you'd better make it quick. I don't want to leave the supercomputer un-guarded for too long."

With that, one set of footsteps receded, and another advanced. We all looked at one another, knowing what we now had to do. A human guard stepped into the room in which we were hiding, and everyone tensed up. Even silenced blasters made some noise, and we couldn't afford to take the chance that nobody would hear them, as they were likely close enough to hear silenced blasters. I had a bad feeling about this, well, until the guard was suddenly frozen solid. We all looked at Exile, who grinned. We all silently thanked him for thinking quickly, and then emerged from our hiding places, following the footsteps heading to the supercomputer we needed to find. I sheathed my sword and took out my bow and an arrow, knocking the arrow and checking our surroundings.

Hunter and Colleen took up the front, followed by the strike team, and then by Blitz, me, and Exile. We followed the footsteps through a maze of hallways, turning in various directions, but the footsteps were still rather easy to follow, as the hallway we followed was marked differently than all the others. After about ten minutes, we reached the end, and saw the other human guard we had heard earlier. He was heading through a vast, open space with a large computer, with many screens and colored lights, completely covering the far wall. He seemed to be the only guard there, but it was likely that the other guy, still frozen where we had left him, was also a guard for that area. The problem was that the guard was going to turn around at some point, (obviously, he wasn't going to stare at the supercomputer to check for intruders) and that would mean he would see us. Colleen seemed to realize that before we did, as she had already started heading silently towards the unaware guard. I raised my bow to cover her, and the rest followed suit with their blasters. We really didn't need to do that, though, as within a few seconds, the unaware guard was roundhouse-kicked in the back of the head, and was out cold. There was a collective sigh of relief, and we all rushed towards the supercomputer. "All right guys," began Hunter, "we need to render this thing useless before HQ's position is given away!" Everyone nodded. Gunther looked at our explosive experts, and nodded. "Your cue, guys," he said. Jack got out a few remote explosives, and Blake readied an EMP device. "We'll need to scramble the electricity flow to this thing first," Blake explained, "so we don't have to worry about someone disarming the explosives before we detonate them, and therefore keep it running." "Also..." Jack continued, "so we don't zap ourselves in the way Blitz is about to," he said, looking at Blitz. We all turned to look at him, and apparently he was about to drive his metal claws into one of the screens. He bit his lip, retracted his claws and grinned in an embarrassed manner. "Ah... sorry..." he said. "One more thing," Hunter added, "Exile! Try to scramble all the information you can on this thing, first." Exile nodded and began to use his repair/disrepair vision on the thing.

Kyle and Gordon were patrolling around the area to check for intruders. That was nice, because they soon alerted us of one. "Darn," said Exile, pulling away from the supercomputer, "I was halfway done... but at least I got rid of coordinates to Headquarters!" I nodded. "That's good enough for what we came for," I said, patting his shoulder. "Guys!" exclaimed Kyle, "They're coming! Hurry up!" Blake set off his EMP charge, and everything on the supercomputer shut off. Unfortunately, so did our communication devices. We decided to worry about those later, and deal with the now. Blake shut off the EMP device, and Jack, who had shielded his devices from the EMP, set up his remote explosives on various points. Having armed all of them, we headed out without further ado. A blaster shot just missed us, and Kyle, who took up the rear, returned fire, and whoever fired the first one was silenced. "Come on," said Gunther, "let's find Parvo before they sound the alarm." "I'm all for that," replied Hunter. We all nodded in agreement, however hesitantly. We knew we had to get to him, but the idea of doing that was rather intimidating.

After heading on for a while, we came across an atrium which looked towards the same hangar we'd seen earlier on one side, and outside on the other. "Watch the windows," ordered Gunther. Exile and I moved near the window opening to the hangar, where the soldiers were still assembled. Apparently, the speaker of the day had begun speaking, as I could hear a booming voice amplified through many speakers. It was a bit eerie, and my fur bristled. I couldn't make out entirely what the speaker was talking about, but it was likely some sort of propaganda. "I don't blame Blitz for being scared," commented Exile. I nodded. "Neither do I," I replied. We stopped for a moment to allow Blake to detonate his devices, and as soon as he hit the switch, we heard a deep "boom" in the distance. The lights inside the hangar flickered, and the speaker stopped talking. "C'mon, let's get out of here before they go on a massive search!" exclaimed Hunter. "Wait," I said, "what about Pa-" Blitz clamped his hand around my muzzle, to prevent me from speaking any more. "Nossing, Hunter! Ve're going now!" I rolled my eyes. _Very funny, Blitz... _I thought. "Besides," added Jack, "I don't think it would be a good idea to do that just after we put his security on full alert. The hangar's emptying already!" We all looked to the hangar, and saw that all of the soldiers were quickly, but methodically, filing out of the hangar, weapons at the ready. "Good point," noted Colleen. "As well-trained as my men are," explained Gunther, "we cannot take on such a massive force by ourselves." "Vell? Vat are ve vaiting for?" exclaimed Blitz. I nodded reluctantly, and followed the rest out of the building. We used our rappel gadgets to belay down the side of the building to the ground, and ran for the Sky Rover. We didn't have time to wait for the strike team's transport, so we let them come with us. We quickly took off and headed back to HQ at full speed.

When we got there, we had a bit of mixed emotions; we were glad because we had destroyed the supercomputer, but a little disappointed because we weren't able to destroy Parvo's jumpdrive. We took the news to the Master, and he seemed to feel mostly the same way we did when he heard it, but a little more forgiving than we were of ourselves. "Well, Rovers," he said, "we still need to get to the jumpdrive, but we come to a dilemma with the increased security... I think we should sleep on it for at least one night." We all nodded. "And I do welcome the strike team to be staying with us. They have been a great asset to our rescue operation in Sicily, and have helped us much in Parvo's fortress today." They nodded respectfully. "You may go, now," he concluded. We all walked out, but before we got to the door, he called back Hunter and Colleen. I heard him say something about them taking the Sky Rover to somewhere, but otherwise, not much else.

We were all pretty silent when we went to the kitchen to get some drinks and food. We didn't know what to say, really. Blitz, clearly worn out, fell asleep in his chair. Blake lifted him up and put him down, back flat on the floor near a wall. Once that was done, Blake went back to the table and tried to strike up a discussion about plans, but to no avail, as even he wasn't sure how to start it out. I had a feeling that we were going to need some help from technology, or some greater numbers. After about a half-hour of silence, the team, Exile, and I got out some paper and tried thinking up plans where we could make up for our much smaller numbers in Parvo's fortress. None of them ended up making much sense, and a lot of them required equipment we didn't have. Blake suggested that we get some sleep. He explained that sometimes good ideas come to us in dreams, and right now, it seemed to be our best chance of thinking up of something. Agreeing with Blake, Gunther, Gordon, Jack, and Kyle slept on spare beds, but set up the area around them so they could wake up and get their weapons quickly, if they needed to. Exile and I slept in different beds in the same room, trying to possibly catch the other's vibes from dreaming. Within about a half hour, we had all fallen into REM sleep.


End file.
